Gareth Thomas: In the current financial year we have allocated £5 million to bilateral programmes in Russia. Other United Kingdom funds, available through the global conflict prevention pool and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office global opportunities fund, amount to some£3 million.

Gareth Thomas: We have had a series of discussions with the Russian authorities in the run-up to theSt. Petersburg summit. My hon. Friend may know that the Russian authorities have prioritised the issues of energy security, education and infectious diseases for discussion at that summit, and we have been working to ensure that there is a development perspective to all those discussions. There will be a report at the summit on progress since Gleneagles. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is expecting to lead a discussion on progress in Africa since then. My hon. Friend may also be interested to know that we have already begun discussions with German colleagues in advance of their presidency next year.

Mark Simmonds: Russia, alongside other eastern European countries such as Ukraine, has significant and escalatingHIV and TB epidemics and the fastest growing coterminous infection rate in the world. The G8 summit in St. Petersburg must address infectious diseases, especially the challenging multi-drug-resistant TB. Considering DFID's strategy towards middle income countries and the Duma's decision to restrict the operations of foreign non-governmental organisations, how does DFID intend to halt and reverse the incidence of infectious diseases? Will the Minister confirm that he will be working towards a specific commitment at the G8 to endorse and fund the global plan?

Hilary Benn: The Central Emergency Response Fund was launched on 9 March 2006. It is now helping UN humanitarian agencies to respond immediately to sudden disasters and to increase activity in underfunded emergencies. So far, CERF has committed $92 million to a number of humanitarian crises, the largest being the Horn of Africa, Darfur and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In total,43 donors have contributed $262 million, and the UK has been the largest contributor.

Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend is right. Having established the fund, we will need it every year, because disasters strike every year. At a Red Cross event last week, I announced that over the next three years Britain will contribute £40 million, £40 million and£40 million—£120 million over three years. I intend to talk to our partner countries and say, "Britain is prepared to make a long-term commitment to the fund. Are you?"

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman has raised an extremely important point. In truth, about 60 per cent. of the funding that comes through the UN system for humanitarian relief ends up in the hands of NGOs, which do the work on the ground. Jan Egeland is conscious that he should be able to take quick decisions on spending money from CERF. I praise him and his team for their work, because such money gets downto NGOs, which deliver increasing amounts of humanitarian assistance when crises strike. I hope that we have got the right mechanisms in place to ensure that there is proper debate and dialogue between the NGO community and the UN system, because we are all in it together in trying to provide assistance when crises strike.

Eric Illsley: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. As he knows, it is now two years sinceSir Michael Bichard made his central recommendation for the police national information technology system. That system will not be available, if at all, until after 2010, and some of the latest cost estimates are up around the £2 billion mark. Will my right hon. Friend reconsider recalling Sir Michael Bichard, first, to allow him to judge progress against his recommendations, and secondly, to ensure that his recommendations do not go the same way as those that came from Dunblane?

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman is talking absolute rubbish. The Sentencing Guidelines Council was supported across the House. The individual whom he mentions and others do not now need to be released because of the powers in the Act. Before the 2003 Act—he can check this with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis)—someone who was sentenced to more than four years' imprisonment was automatically paroled at the two thirds point, irrespective of what happened. Under the Act, that right to automatic parole was taken away. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues voted against that as well.
	If we are going to talk about facts—and I am happy to talk about antisocial behaviour, about which he attacked us and again dismissed as a gimmick, even though the powers are doing good in communities throughout the country, or assets recovery, which his lot tried to water down—the truth is that he and his hon. Friends talk tough in the media and vote soft in Parliament.

David Cameron: I know a thing or two about the 2003 Act because I sat on the Bill Committee. Let me tell the House something that I said at the time:
	"If there is one thing that undermines people's confidence in the criminal justice system, it is the feeling that time after time sentences are handed down but people are released halfway through them."— [Official Report, Standing Committee B, 11 February 2003; c. 954. ]
	That is why we opposed it.
	Can the Prime Minister confirm something else? The only reason that this case— [ Interruption.] They are shouting because they do not like it. They know that they are on the wrong side. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the only reason that this case can be sent back to the Court of Appeal for a tougher sentence to be considered is the Criminal Justice Act that we passed and that he voted against?

Tony Blair: Again, all that we have done is to toughen the ability of the Attorney-General— [ Interruption.] Yes, we have, as a matter of fact. I want to go back to what the right hon. Gentleman has said. He is completely wrong. Under the 2003 Act, if someone is sentenced to more than four years in prison—in other words, if it is a serious offence—they can no longer be paroled at the two-thirds point. Since April 2005, 1,000 indeterminate sentences have been handed down and no one has been paroled because of that Act. The right hon. Gentleman says that he and his colleagues support tough measures, but I have before me a press release put out just the other day by the shadow Leader of the House. We remember debating the 90 days or the 28 days for the detention of suspected terrorists. We were forced, because of the right hon. Gentleman's votes, to have the 28 days. The shadow Leader of the House then attacked us for not introducing this measure quickly enough. The reason that we are unable to introduce it quickly is that the Conservatives insisted on a longer consultation period, which prevented us from doing that. So at every stage, whether it involves antisocial behaviour, assets recovery, the Criminal Justice Act or terrorist legislation, the right hon. Gentleman talks tough but he votes soft.

David Cameron: Why does not the Prime Minister understand that the reason that criminals are not let out two thirds of the way through their sentence now is that, under his legislation, they are let out halfway through their sentence? In the past 40 days, the Home Secretary has blamed the judges, blamed the civil servants and tried to blame the public. Will the Prime Minister tell him to stop trying to blame everyone else and to get on with his job?

Tony Blair: I certainly can. First, energy prices are rising the entire time, which is why the whole issue of nuclear energy is back on the agenda not just of this country but of many other countries around the world. I think that 50 to 60 different nuclear power stations are being built this year, including the first in Europe for a long time. Secondly, our anxiety about climate change and the need to find clean sources of energy is increasing. Thirdly, when we consider our self-sufficiency in energy, we find that we are about80 to 90 per cent. sufficient in oil and gas. Over the next 15 to 20 years, that will reverse, and we will have to import. Therefore, there are reasons of security of supply, rising energy costs and climate change. I am not saying that nuclear is the only answer—of course it is not. There are renewables, energy efficiency and everything else. However, I still think that nuclear must be at least part of the debate and argument if we are to make sure that our energy needs are properly and cleanly met for the future. That answers the right hon. and learned Gentleman's question.

James McGovern: Last weekend, I was contacted by a constituent,Mrs. Karen Stupart, who tragically lost her husband John in a building site accident over 10 years ago.Mrs. Stupart was subsequently awarded more than £250,000 of damages through the courts, but she and her family are yet to receive one penny of thatmoney. Her late husband's former employers declared themselves bankrupt immediately after the award was made, and their insurers, Lombard, exploited a legal technicality to avoid making a payment. This Government can be justifiably proud of setting up the Pension Protection Fund to protect the pensions of workers whose employers go bust. Cannot we now consider extending that protection to compensatory payments made in cases of workplace negligence? Will the Prime Minister meet me to discuss the extremely distressing circumstances of this case?

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman talks about job losses, but with the greatest of respect, when we look into a lot of those so-called job losses, we find that they are actually either posts that are not being filled or agency workers who are not being hired. Since we came to power, there have been about 250,000 additional people working in the national health service, and, in addition, we are paying them better than ever before and protecting their pensions. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he is speaking up for the NHS and the nurses, but he opposed the extra investment in the national health service, he opposed the extra jobs in the nationalhealth service, he opposed the pay deals in the national health service, and now he wants to take away their pensions. So whoever else is in a good position to represent them, he certainly is not.

David Chaytor: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the holding of referendums about methods of election to the House of Commons and to local authorities; to enable a specified number of electors to require the holding of such a referendum; to require the Electoral Commission to establish a Citizens' Assembly to perform functions in relation to referendums; to provide for the adoption by a local authority of a different method of election; and for connected purposes.
	The Bill responds to widespread concern about public confidence in, and the legitimacy of, our democratic processes. It is presented in the context of declining participation in national and local elections, and growing concern about disengagement and alienation from the political process, especially among young people.
	In brief, the Bill proposes the mechanism of a referendum to decide on the merits of different voting systems for both parliamentary and municipal elections. For general elections, the mechanism for that would be a petition containing the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate. For local elections, the mechanism would be either 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate, or a simple resolution of the local authority. In both cases, the question in the referendum would provide a simple choice between the election system in force and one of the five alternative systems specified in the Bill. The decision on which of the alternatives should be included in the question for a national referendum would be the responsibility of the Electoral Commission after it had taken the advice of a citizens assembly, which would comprise a randomly selected group of individual electors. The assembly would have the prime function of considering and reporting on the merits of the different systems.
	As we approach the 175th anniversary of the Great Reform Act of 1832, our democracy is in need of further great reform. Although I recognise that the voting system is only one aspect of our democratic machinery, it nevertheless has a crucial influence on the general perception of the credibility of government at all levels. It can affect the willingness of people to participate in elections and to put themselves forward for elections. It is vital that the public have confidence that all their votes can help to make a difference and that those who stand for election broadly reflect the composition of the population as a whole.
	I stress that the Bill does not simply reopen the debate about majoritarian and proportional systems of voting, and nor is it designed simply to introduce proportional representation by the back door. As the promoter of the Bill, it is my view that no single electoral system is perfect. Different systems have different strengths and weaknesses, so a healthy democracy needs a mix of systems to provide the right blend of checks and balances.
	The Bill expresses no preference between different voting systems. Its only purpose is to ensure that the voices of ordinary citizens are heard, and that they have power to choose directly the means by which they elect their representatives. However, the Bill does require that the advocates of different voting systems state their case positively and win their argument, rather than maintaining the status quo through inertia or misinformation. Although the Bill expresses no preference between different systems, the mechanism of the referendum would require the advocates of all systems actively to engage ordinary people in the merits of their case.
	The basic statistics on the level of democratic participation in the United Kingdom are not encouraging. The 2005 general election delivered a Government with a healthy majority of 66, built on the votes of a mere 35 per cent. of the electorate—the lowest share of the vote for any governing party since 1918. With a turnout of only 61 per cent., the 35 per cent. share of the vote delivered 55 per cent. of the seats, but with the active support of barely one in five of the total of those eligible to vote. Of the world's democracies, only Turkey has a majority Government elected with a lower share of the vote. In the European Union, only the coalition Governments of Estonia and Lithuania were elected with a lower share of the vote. The turnout in last year's general election was the second lowest since 1918, and with the exception of elections in the five former Soviet bloc countries, last year's general election had the lowest turnout of all recent parliamentary elections in the European Union.
	I do not argue that the current electoral system is solely responsible for those depressing statistics. However, we can no longer ignore the long-term consequences of the declining enthusiasm for the ballot box. With the exception of France, Britain is the only country in the EU to use first past the post for parliamentary elections, and almost all the world's most recently established democracies have opted for a system with a strong proportional element. The House has notably chosen to avoid the use of pure first past the post in the voting systems for the devolved assemblies.
	That brings me to the question of local democracy. There will be those who say that by allowing for the possibility of different electoral systems in neighbouring local authorities, the Bill would cause confusion and introduce further complexity—but we have already accepted the principle of variability in local democratic procedures. The Greater London assembly, for example, has an electoral system different from that for individual London boroughs, and local authorities that have adopted the system of directly elected mayors have already adopted systems of political accountability different from those of authorities that have retained a leader and cabinet system. The Bill provides for exactly the same mechanism—a petition bearing the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the electorate—that the House has already agreed for the establishment of directly elected mayors.
	I do not argue that the system of elected mayors has brought about an immediate transformation of local government, although I think that there are many examples of very successful elected mayors, but I do say that if the House has already agreed that it is acceptable for neighbouring local authorities to have different systems of political accountability, it must follow that it is equally acceptable for them to have different electoral systems. Similarly, if the House has accepted the use of the referendum as an appropriate means of enabling voters to choose the structure of their council's political leadership, it must follow that a referendum is an equally appropriate means of enabling voters to determine how their local political leaders should be elected.
	That brings me to the heart of the Bill. By devolving power over such decisions away from the political caucus to the individual citizen, and away from the Westminster village to the real villages, towns and cities of the United Kingdom in which 60 million people live, the Bill would help to reinvigorate a debate about the nature of political representation that has been dormant for far too long.
	The Bill requires the Electoral Commission to establish a citizens assembly—a randomly selected group of citizens who would take on the task of considering in some detail the merits of different voting systems, and then making recommendations to the Electoral Commission on the forming of the question in the referendum. By engaging the public in such a process, we would open up the debate much more directly than would be the case if the arguments were restricted to the more conventional forms of parliamentary procedures and progressed through the use of national commissions of inquiry composed entirely of the great and the good.
	As the Bill expresses no preference for any single electoral system but simply requires that people should be able to choose directly the system under which they wish to be governed, it paves the way for a great national debate, or an extensive series of local debates, about the future of our democracy, in which ordinary people would be fully involved. Of course, it should also be possible for those on either side of the debate about electoral reform, together with those who are genuinely undecided or who support hybrid systems, to support the Bill.
	To conclude, the Bill proposes the use of a referendum to consider alternative systems of voting for local and parliamentary elections. It requires the signatures of at least 5 per cent. of the relevant electorate to trigger the referendum. The referendum question would offer a simple choice between the current system and one alternative.
	The Bill is supported by a number of well-established organisations, which have come together as the electoral choice steering committee. Its members include the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform, Charter88, the New Politics Network and the Electoral Reform Society. I am grateful to the electoral choice steering committee for its assistance in promoting the Bill. Whatever the Bill's future, the issue of electoral choice will return again and again until the argument for a referendum is finally won. I commend the Bill to the House.

Andrew Turner: As far as I can see, this Bill would implement a hitherto forgotten part of the Government's 1997 programme. It is important to start by looking back at why the proposal for a referendum on electoral reform was included. It is because in the run-up to the 1997 general election, the Prime Minister did not think that he would win sufficient seats in the House to form a majority. He therefore did a deal with the then leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, which provided for the Prime Minister to introduce a referendum if Lord Ashdown's party supported the proposal.
	However, what the Prime Minister did not say at the time—although I am sure that it what he would have said—is that it is one thing to bring in a referendum, and another to ensure that it is carried with the support of the Labour party. It is my belief that Labour Back Benchers and many Labour voters up and down the country, in common with many on the Conservative Benches, would have voted against such a referendum, and Lord Ashdown would have been stymied. The Prime Minister was quite content with that, so when he had a majority, he did not introduce legislation of this kind.
	Why is the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) now introducing this Bill? Is it because he and his hon. Friends believe something that they did not believe seven or eight years ago? Is it because they believe something that they have been unable to implement over the lifetime of two and a half Labour Governments? Is it because they believe that in a year or two they will no longer command a majority in the House, and are grasping at whatever straw is available to amend or fiddle the electoral system to their advantage, as some of their colleagues have done before? Why are Labour Back Benchers becoming interested in electoral reform again?
	The hon. Gentleman says—and I believe him—that he is concerned about declining levels of participation in our democracy. I do not believe that those declining levels can be remedied by structural fiddling of this kind. What is wrong with our democracy is not whether people turn out when they have the opportunity to do so, but the incapacity of Members on both sides of the House to engage the electors sufficiently to make them believe that voting can make a difference. What matters is not how one votes, but whether one can vote for a party that will make a difference. It is fair to acknowledge that at the last election, the public did not believe that the Conservative party could form a majority, so in many parts of the country they saw no point in turning out to support us. On the other hand, they saw no point in turning out in elections to defend the Labour party either, because in many constituencies the Labour party was unassailable.
	It is not structural change that will engage people in politics, but the belief that by such engagement they can change the country for the better. I am confident that by the time we get to the next general election, the belief that voting can change the country for the better will be much wider. The hon. Member for Bury, North complains about the lowest turnout in the western world, but the current electoral system did not lead to that, and when a real choice is put before the British people and an opportunity presented to vote for change, the turnout will certainly be high enough.
	The hon. Gentlemen says that democracy is in need of greater reform, and I agree with him. I agree that we need greater accountability, but I must say that I have not seen that introduced as a result of the Government's changes in local government. Instead of a system of committees, we now have a system of elective dictatorship—but I did not see the hon. Gentleman vote against that. I agree with referendums and I think that they are a good idea, but I do not see why they should be confined to votes on issues that the Government and their supporters believe people should be allowed to vote on. People should be entitled to choose which issues to vote on for themselves. Perhaps they should have an opportunity to bring forward propositions of their own— [Interruption.] Yes, propositions to protect grammar schools, or propositions on sentencing, capital punishment and other issues that really engage with this country's electors.
	The hon. Member for Bury, North suggested bringing forward five alternative systems of voting, which are specified in the Bill, but we are not to give people the opportunity to choose a system of democracy for themselves. Rather, they are to be handed down a system of democracy from the very place that the hon. Gentleman describes as the Westminster village, from which he says he is going to take away these powers.
	The hon. Gentleman says that people will be able to adopt a system of democracy appropriate to their area, but I must tell him, in all candour, that politicians in those areas would—as the Government did in their Bills for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—adopt the electoral system that they believed would lead to the outcome that they desired. That, I am afraid, will be the consequence of introducing a range of different electoral systems in different countries. The proportional system in Northern Ireland has merely spread power to the extremities in politics, rather than give a greater voice to the men of good sense and moderation, like ourselves, in the middle. I cannot see how introducing a system—either by the front door or by the back door—that allows politicians to pick and choose the electoral system that will keep them in power can be good for democracy.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman suggested giving greater responsibility to the Electoral Commission—as if it did not have enough to do already. For example, it is examining the boundary review system to ensure that we do not start with unfair boundaries and end up with unfair boundaries. As if the Electoral Commission could not be doing more to look into votes for members of the armed forces, or as if it did not have enough to worry about in respect of impersonation and postal votes! The Electoral Commission consumes a huge amount of money and it does not require additional responsibilities, but to focus on its current responsibilities.
	The hon. Gentleman is convinced that his Bill will take power away from the Westminster village into towns and villages up and down the country. I wish that that were true. He believes that ordinary people in their pubs and clubs spend their time discussing the electoral system by which their local authorities are elected—but he must live in a world very different from that of the Isle of Wight. In my constituency, very little time is spent discussing the electoral system. The Bill will not give power to ordinary citizens. It is an adventure playground for political anoraks, and I urge the House to reject it.

Peter Bone: Does not the Foreign Secretary destroy her own argument when she talks about the G8 and the "plus five" countries? It is nothing to do with the EU.

Keith Vaz: I am not accusing my right hon. Friend of sitting on the issue, which is difficult and complex. If we accept that there is still a period of reflection —[ Interruption. ] I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, South-West(Mr. Davidson) is needed in the agriculture debate. Given that the EU has 25 members, and may have27 members next year, we can move forward in some areas without the need for legislation, as that would help the transparency and efficiency of the EU. If we work with our colleagues on, for example, science and the proposed university, we could advance the agenda without the need for a constitution.

Ian Davidson: I am grateful that the matter has been raised. Is the Minister saying that the constitution has not been approved, but European leaders and the Government intend to implement bits of it anyway under existing rules? Does that not give the lie to the statement that was constantly made when the constitution was under consideration that only by accepting everything in the constitution could we make progress on anything?

Margaret Beckett: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	On the status of the constitutional treaty, we do not believe that now is the time for the European Council to take a definitive decision. There was a clear consensus last June that a period of reflection was needed. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston asked me about that. The ongoing national debates on the future of Europe show that there is no clear consensus on the constitutional treaty. It seems to us that the European Council should respect that diversity of opinion and agree to extend the period of reflection.
	With regard to enlargement, this European Council was due to take a decision on whether Bulgaria and Romania should accede to the Union in 2007 as scheduled or whether to delay accession until 2008. The Commission has now recommended deferring that decision until October, given its concerns about the readiness of both countries. There will be a report from the Commission in October. However, we expect that the topic of enlargement may still be raised at the European Council. Here, as in the debate on the future of Europe, the United Kingdom's position has always been very clear, and I am pleased to acknowledge that it has received full support from all sides of the House.
	There is no better example of how the European Union can bring tangible benefits to its citizens than through successive waves of enlargement. Those benefits have been most obvious in the countries acceding. They have gained both greater economic growth and greater political stability. That was true back in the 1980s when countries such as Spain and Greece emerged from dictatorship, and it was true in 2003 when the 10 new member states stepped out from the shadow of communist totalitarianism.
	Existing member states have benefited too. Our peace and security have been enhanced by that spreading stability and by the spreading of the rule of law to an ever-wider circle of neighbours. As we have seen from the most recent wave of enlargement, it has opened up new markets and given us access to much needed skilled labour. Any enlargement has to be managed carefully. It must take into account a number of factors, including the ability of the European Union to absorb new member states, as the European Council acknowledged at Copenhagen in 1993.

Mark Todd: Will my right hon. Friend draw the attention of her colleagues to the success that the United Kingdom has had in taking a more open approach to new members joining the European Union and the migration of labour that has been achieved with that, very much to the benefit of this country's economy, in contrast with performance elsewhere?

Mike Gapes: My right hon. Friend mentioned the discussions about the middle east. Can she give us an indication whether the temporary implementation mechanism for assistance to the Palestinian people is likely to make any significant progress in the next few days, given the acute political crisis, the crisis of violence and the humanitarian needs of the people in Palestine?

John Bercow: I understand the constraints of this weekend's agenda. Given that she used the words "accountability" and "transparency", what is wrong with public excoriation of EU member states which prop up regimes that abuse human rights? What is wrong with that tactic?

William Hague: Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. That happens because there is a growing public and political sense in Europe that the combination of the vast enlargement of the European Union, the pace of globalisation and the rejection of the constitution requires new ideas about the future of Europe that are different from the failed orthodoxies of the past 20 years. I should like the Government to move on to those new ideas.

William Hague: Why did not the Minister give the speech in the debate rather than outside the House? I am the bearer of news of his speech and am thus doing the House a service but it should not be necessary for me to do that.
	The Minister said that the debate in Europe should be about globalisation, the developing world and environmental concerns. So it should. During the British presidency last year, where were all the proposals on globalisation, the developing world and environmental concerns? With the Lisbon agenda stalled, where were the new proposals from Her Majesty's Government in their presidency to drive forward the European response to globalisation?

William Hague: Of course I have not forgotten. We agree about much of that. However, when the Government caved in on common agricultural policy reform and agreed to a reduction of £7 billion in the British rebate with no guarantee of reform, where was the concern for developing countries, which the Minister claims is at the forefront of the Government's mind?
	That is the trouble with what we have gleaned so far of the Minister's speech. It represents the identification of vague priorities after a major opportunity has been lost. It conveys no sense of energy or vision in tackling those priorities, or of being prepared to stand up and say that the defeat of the constitution, the vast enlargement of the EU and the pace of globalisation require a change in the way in which Europe develops. The speech has all the hallmarks of Ministers sitting in a room, saying, "We will be accused of saying nothing in the debate, so let's say something just before it, even if it amounts to very little."
	People throughout Europe have unfortunately become cynical about British ministerial pronouncements that are trumpeted and followed by little of the action for which they call. In the Prime Minister's other recent speech about Europe—his speech to the European Parliament last year at the beginning of the British presidency—he said:
	"The people are blowing the trumpets round the city walls."
	That caused some alarm among Members of the European Parliament, who thought that a crowd had formed outside for the first time in their experience. He continued:
	"They are wanting our leadership. It is time we gave it to them."
	One can imagine the Prime Minister with the crowd outside: "What do we want?" "Leadership!" "When do we want it?" "After an indefinite period of reflection." That is the position that we have reached and it is time for the Government to give clearer leadership in Europe than they have shown so far.

William Hague: On careers, I go and down and up but the right hon. Gentleman goes down and down.
	The Minister criticises us for trying to form a new group in the European Parliament and people ask, "Why do you want to talk to people in Poland and be allied with them?" Yet, only on Monday, the right hon. Gentleman said:
	"Poland and the UK are old friends in the new Europe and links between the two countries have never been stronger."
	What on earth is wrong with political parties in this country aiming to forge closer links with other countries and political parties in Europe with which they agree?

William Hague: Yes, it is the fault of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd)— [Interruption.] I am glad that he takes responsibility for it.
	I want to ask several specific questions about the forthcoming summit. The Foreign Secretary referred to aid to Palestinian people and specifically answered the question about that. I hope that the Minister can enlarge on that in his winding-up speech because the Quartet agreed more than a month ago that urgent delivery of aid to Palestinians was necessary and instructed the EU to take the lead on a temporary international mechanism. When I was in the occupied territories only a few weeks ago, I got the impression that the need was urgent, that the Palestinian economy is contracting more sharply than might have been expected and that that is likely to cause great hardship. Reports have emerged that the United States has rejected the European proposal. Is it true that the United States has asked the EU to go back to the drawing board? What is the state of the preparations for establishing the temporary international mechanism? Will the Foreign Secretary take steps—her speech implied that she would—to resolve the matter at this week's summit? Will the Minister tell us more about the mechanism and when it is likely to be in place?
	Secondly, may I press Ministers further on the transparency issue, which the Foreign Secretary addressed briefly in her opening speech? One item to be discussed at the summit is greater transparency at meetings of the Council of the European Union. We have long supported an end to closed meetings of the Council, for reasons that the European Scrutiny Committee set out in the relevant report. First, national Parliaments and electorates cannot hold Ministers to account if it is not clear how they have acted in the Council. Secondly, it is easy for Governments to blame Brussels for decisions that they might themselves have agreed to in closed meetings. Thirdly, closed meetings can result in deals that no Government fully accountable to their own Parliament would have agreed to. Lastly, the arrangement makes a large part of the EU's business invisible to the citizen.

William Hague: I am not sure that the analogy with this place is to the Foreign Secretary's advantage on this issue. The deliberations of Parliament are fully open to the public—not just the decisions reached. And the Council of Ministers is now, in effect, a legislative body. In fact, the Council of the European Union and North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly are now the world's only legislatures that meet in secret. Those of us who are fond of our 18th century history will remember that, in the 1770s, the case was still being put in this House that its proceedings could not possibly be reported in public because Members would not be able to speak frankly and would be open to influence by the public. That is what people in this country thought more than 200 years ago. Now the same case is being made, as I understand it, by the Foreign Secretary in the Council of Ministers.
	So strong has been the case for transparency that we have had cross-party consensus on the matter in this country. The leaders of all the British parties in the European Parliament signed a declaration to that effect and the Government put forward a paper during their presidency proposing to make Council meetings and business more open. Those proposals contained two options. The European Council agreed to partial openness, which is what the Foreign Secretary has just referred to. However, the then Minister for Europe, now the Secretary of State for Scotland, the righthon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South(Mr. Alexander), then wrote to the European Scrutiny Committee to assure it that the British objective
	"remains to push for all of the Council's legislative business to be opened up to the public",
	although the more ambitious option favoured by the UK would have required a change to the Council's procedures. However, it seems that the Foreign Secretary has now thrown a spanner in the works by saying that there would be too much openness, so we might have to keep some of the same old secrecy.

William Hague: I actually think that this thrashing around, as my hon. Friend describes it, can best be dealt with by the Government taking a clear stand on some of the issues coming up at the summit and subsequently. I want to mention a couple of those issues before I give other hon. Members a chance to take part in the debate.
	On justice and home affairs, the Government should reflect that Governments who do nothing have things done to them. That is indeed what is happening now, most seriously in the context of the EU's powers over justice and home affairs. Tomorrow's summit will consider the Commission's proposal to move policing and judicial co-operation, under the remit of the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, from third to first pillar, and to abolish national vetoes. Not only would that be a profound increase in the European Union's power and a diminution of national sovereignty in an area where voters demand national accountability, but it would implement part of the constitution through the back door, which the Government promised that they would not allow.
	The Foreign Secretary might recall that shortly before the Labour party came into government nine years ago, it explicitly promised that it would keep this area under intergovernmental supervision. It is therefore extraordinary that the Government refused to come out against that proposal in a recent written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady). The Foreign Secretary has again refused to come out against it today. When the Minister for Europe winds up, will he tell us what the position is? Would not that move be a clear breach of the Government's promises?
	One would have thought that the Government would have learned the danger of accepting qualified majority voting from their experience with the recent directive on the free movement of EU citizens and their families, the decision on which was moved from unanimity to QMV by the Nice treaty. We warned the Government against that at the time. They expressed opposition to parts of that directive because they said that it would make it hard to deport EU citizens or members of their families who were not conducive to the public good. They were outvoted, however, and we all know how that contributed to the current mess over foreign criminals. Why are the Government now ready to allow an expansion of the EU's power in this area, when recent history tells us that it will lead to them presiding helplessly over some new fiasco in the future, with their hands almost certainly tied by European law?
	We are facing the usual EU fault in this area: rather than concentrating on practical measures that will be of real use and that will preserve our liberties, for which the Minister has been calling, it is still engaged in a desperate search for "more Europe". Thus the recent European evidence warrant dispenses with the crucial safeguard of dual criminality, but the proposal for the harmonisation of criminal proceedings applies to an ill-defined list of crimes and fails to tackle urgent issues of terrorism and national security. Nor did the Commission consult with member states where there are cross-border issues or real concerns.
	It is not only in justice and home affairs—

William Hague: No, the hon. Gentleman has had one intervention. I shall move on and try to conclude my remarks.
	Another recent Commission paper on the subject calls for the EU to
	"give further consideration to sharing of premises and support services for Member State and EU external representations in third countries",
	and therefore calls, in effect, for an EU consular service. The direction of those proposals is the revival of the external action service contained in the constitution and the Commission's attempts to win a foreign policy remit. Let me remind the Government again that, before coming into office, they explicitly pledged to keep foreign policy an intergovernmental area. When I asked the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House in February 2003 about an EU diplomatic service, he said:
	"There is no way that the foreign or defence policy of this country will be conducted by an EU diplomatic service."—[ Official Report, 25 February 2003; Vol. 400, c. 131.]
	Should not the Government therefore express strong opposition to proposals for this embryonic EU consular service at the forthcoming summit?
	The background to the summit is a slow-burning crisis in the European Union. We know that many of Europe's economies are performing poorly— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) says from a sedentary position that I said that last time. I did say that, normally, 95 per cent. of the content of speeches in such debates is a repeat of what was said last time. I have tried to reduce that to only 10 per cent. in this speech. This, however, is an especially important point that needs repeating every time. On current trends, Europe faces the greatest loss of economic influence in the world of any group of countries in peacetime in modern history. The latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report says that,
	"at current trends, the average U.S. citizen will be twice as rich as a Frenchman or German in 20 years".
	Such assessments are ominous.
	The assumptions of the past 50 years no longer hold true. Where once Europe's priority was political harmony, it must now be economic dynamism. Thanks to the radical changes in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, Britain is well placed to lead on that, to challenge some of the orthodoxies of recent decades and to call on Europe to replace habits of heavy regulation and rigidity with freedom and flexibility. Ministers should say clearly in speeches in the next few months that the attempt to create a politically united Europe was a response to the problems of the 20th( )century and the aftermath of world wars, and it is now time to bring the vision of Europe up to date and to advocate a Europe of decentralisation and diversity in the spirit of the 21st century.
	That means emphasising some of the issues mentioned by the Minister for Europe. It means emphasising trade to a much greater extent, including the ideas that I and the Chancellor have raised for freer transatlantic free trade. We look forward to Foreign Office Ministers following that up with great vigour. That has not been the case with the Chancellor's previous statements on such subjects, which have not been followed up in practice by the Government.
	This is the call for the change that is needed in Europe. If nothing changes, and if the EU as a whole continues to think that the establishment of a constitution should be its chief priority, it will do nothing for our citizens and will give succour to those who claim that we now face a set of European institutions that are beyond reform. Ministers should have the courage to say so, and they should have the courage to say it this weekend.

Angus Robertson: I am grateful to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee for allowing such an early intervention. On scrutiny of European business in the House, does he agree that there are two challenges? First, Members need to take their obligations seriously, whether in Standing Committees or the European Scrutiny Committee. I note the unfortunate new statistics that show that the Liberal Democrats' participation in the European Scrutiny Committee is less than 30 per cent., so they miss more than 70 per cent. of meetings. Secondly, does he agree that if we are to have proper scrutiny, it is unfortunate that the Government keep timetabling debates on European business to clash with the European Scrutiny Committee, which means that Members such as me cannot take part in those debates?

Kelvin Hopkins: My hon. Friend attributes a noble motive to our Government's decision not to hold a referendum—their respect for the results in France and Holland. However, were their minds not also concentrated by the fact that, according to recent figures, 86 per cent. of the British people would have voted against the treaty and only 14 per cent. would have been in favour?

Jimmy Hood: That is a rather negative view; my own opinion is that the Government did the honourable and right thing. My hon. Friend can look into his own conspiracy theories.
	Having said what I just said, the reality, to which I have referred, is that we need a treaty that is fit for purpose. Therefore, we have to have the arrangements for further enlargement in the treaty for the European Union. We cannot say to Croatia, Turkey or the states in the western Balkans that want to join the Union that we are prepared to welcome them, subject to them agreeing to various criteria if we do not have a treaty that is fit for purpose and we have not carried out our own obligations with respect to the enlargement.
	Some have suggested that the moment of reflection will be followed by an attempt to bring the old treaty proposals in by the back door. I do not see it that way and I would not support that, but the proposals included other matters, especially the role of national Parliaments, that we should support. Some national parliamentarians have said that we are cherry-picking—but if it is cherry-picking to argue the case for more powers for national Parliaments, I support it.

Michael Moore: It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood), especially given the comments that he made about the scrutiny of European legislation in this House and elsewhere. I am especially grateful to him for the generous way in which he handled the constructive interventions from the hon. Members for Moray (Angus Robertson) and for Glasgow, South-West(Mr. Davidson) who, mysteriously, are no longer in their places. No doubt they will return to make their usual contributions at some point soon.
	Like the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East and the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), I pay tribute to the new Foreign Secretary and wish her well in her new post, especially as this is her first major debate on Europe. As the right hon. Gentleman said, these debates take a familiar form and pattern, and the contributions do not necessarily change much from year to year.
	At least in the past few years, the European summits have had a clear area of focus. We had the Convention, then all the discussions about enlargement and the constitutional treaty, followed by the shock and horror of the European political classes in the aftermath of the French and Dutch referendums last year. The sense of shock may have dissipated in this period of reflection, but the sense of unease remains, and it has affected the debate in this country and the participants in it.
	Last summer, the Prime Minister made what everyone reckoned was a barnstorming speech in the European Parliament, which is perhaps unused to a style of delivery with which we are more familiar here. The speech was, obviously, focused on Europe, as was one that he gave at St. Antony's college in Oxford earlier in the year. However, it was revealing that when he made his much vaunted package of three foreign policy speeches in the past couple of months—in London, in Canberra and at Georgetown university in the United States—he made virtually no mention of the European Union. Indeed, the debate at St. Antony's revealed a former idealist who may have become more than a little scunnered over the years.
	In the constitutional treaty process, the former Foreign Secretary, who is now the Leader of the House, was very focused on red lines and on never giving in, but I hope that it is not unfair to mention his barely concealed joy when he spoke about the constitution being either dead or in limbo. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks reminded us of that earlier. Being a son of the manse in the Church of Scotland, I do not know the precise theological equivalent of limbo in my faith, but I think that we can all understand what the right hon. Gentleman meant.
	The former Foreign Secretary was very keen and proud about the prospect of greater transparency, better scrutiny and more openness in the EU. For that reason, it is especially sad to hear the new Foreign Secretary apparently retreat from what was to be a symbolic breakthrough for openness in EU matters, and even at this late stage, I hope that the Government will reconsider their approach. When the Minister for Europe responds to the debate, perhaps he will explain why, after years of the Government championing the treaty as a great example of what the new Europe would be about, the Foreign Office has suddenly got cold feet.
	In particular, I hope that the Minister will say what the Government's attitude will be if the Austrians proceed with their proposals to reverse the burden of proof—which would mean that the European Council would have to establish that there was a good reason for not having openness before people were excluded. That would be a good arrangement, and it is a shame that the Government appear to be backtracking away from it.
	In his characteristic style, the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, used attack as the best form of defence. He cantered through many of the difficulties of the past year, but did not say much about the European People's party. Perhaps the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady) will deal with that at the end of the debate, although, beyond talking about fruitcakes and loonies, there may not be much scope for comment at present.
	The shadow Foreign Secretary also said very little about his proposed British free trade area with the US. He mentioned it, and it would be interesting to get more details in due course, although I do not think that the Republicans will provide much cover for the Conservatives in the European Parliament.
	The period of reflection has been largely a period of inactivity, but I do not want to be too churlish, as the UK presidency saw the start of the very important negotiations on Turkey's entry into the EU. That was a major breakthrough, and there was also the budget deal—of sorts—that we have debated here previously. Yet we have not heard much about reflection and re-engagement with the peoples of Europe. The European Commission's famous plan D—for democracy, dialogue and debate—may have been well intentioned, but it has hardly been gripping. That was made clear by the report earlier this year from the European Scrutiny Committee that was debated in European Standing Committee a few weeks ago, and it reinforces the need for this House to improve our scrutiny of what is going on.
	Earlier, the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood) spoke about the welcome that he gave the proposals from the Minister for Europe, when he was Leader of the House, to look again at our procedures for scrutiny of these matters. I hope that the Minister's new interest and new Foreign Office perspective will cause him to be an agent for change, helping to deliver better transparency and openness. That is especially important, as it will allow the House to focus on the important question of subsidiarity that is, quite rightly, of such concern.
	As many as 15 of the EU's 25 member states have ratified the treaty, but not many people still believe that the present version will survive. We learn that there is more reflection to come, and there is little prospect that a target date for reform will be agreed at the forthcoming summit. Institutional life in Europe will be very difficult in the medium term, and we must hope that that serves to focus minds. We will need to make a virtue of pragmatism, but if we want a sustainable long-term outcome, we will have to resist the temptation to indulge in comprehensive cherry-picking, as opposed to undertaking a proper review of the treaty.
	We supported the treaty, but whatever its merits or otherwise, we cannot win trust for it if we introduce large chunks by the back door. We need to design a new process that involves both national Parliaments and the citizens of member states, but in the meantime, we must get on with dealing with voters' concerns. The problem goes beyond subsidiarity, transparency and openness. There is plenty of debate about the democratic deficit in Europe, but we need to focus more on the delivery deficit, as some commentators have noted. That deficit applies to the economy, the security fears that arise from illegal migration and trafficking in human beings and drugs, other organised crime, and the environment.
	Over the years EU leaders have promised much, but the rhetoric—such as the Lisbon agenda's aim to create the world's most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010—has always looked a bit overblown. It certainly does now, however much the Hampton Court summit tried to give it new focus.
	Uncertainty about the economy is the biggest single problem across the EU, and was very influential in last year's no votes in France and the Netherlands. Some people fear the impact of enlargement, but we think that that fear is misplaced. Enlargement brings challenges, but we supported the Government when they decided, from the outset, to allow workers from new member states to come to this country and be part of the work force here. That was the right decision, and it has proved to be a success.
	However, I hope that the summit will consider the realities of globalisation. Some of the reaction to the proposals in the treaty betrayed a desire to wish away the realities of the modern economic world. That is a temptation, especially given the economic whirlwind blowing around us, but we cannot put the genie back in the bottle.
	China and India show average growth of about 9 per cent. per annum, and that is anticipated to continue over the next few years. People in Europe, whether they be in the eurozone or here in the UK, can only dream of a performance like that.

Michael Moore: The hon. Gentleman is generous to me, but I hope that he does not mind if I say that I disagree with him on this matter. That seems to be the sad pattern of our dealings on matters European, although I admire his consistency and dedication of purpose. Nevertheless, he hits on some real issues that we need to tackle. We will get nowhere if we pretend that there are not serious problems, which national Governments and the EU as a whole must try and resolve.
	This year we witnessed an energy crisis, and the development of economic patriotism in France and elsewhere that involved the attempted blocking of certain mergers. Each of the individual countries will have to face up to structural reform, which in some cases is long overdue. They will have to accept that getting Europe's economy into shape is essential if we are to cope in the new globalising world economy. This year, we have at least had a services directive, although it is not the full-blown one that we were originally promised, and there are signs of life in the Commission, with initiatives to tackle mobile phone roaming costs. All those things are worth while, but, relatively speaking, not as good as they might be.
	The big prize is surely the World Trade Organisation. As many have already said, this is a vital trade round, particularly for our commitment to the developing world. Selfishly, for us in Europe, it is also crucial for our economies. The summit will need to recognise what is at stake—and not just for the developed world's credibility or in relation to the trade benefits of new arrangements between the key economic blocs. Increasingly, the very existence of the WTO itself is at stake, with the increased risk of bilateralism, increased protectionism and a general undermining of the rules-based international trading order. The EU needs the WTO and our constituents need a credible European Union. The Trade Commissioner, going into bat on behalf of all of us in Europe, is much more effective than a single national Government. If we are to cope with the tides of globalisation we need the rules of the system to work, and the EU's negotiating stand needs to reflect that.
	Sometimes in Europe we forget the basics about security, democracy and prosperity, which brought the founding members together and attracted many more to the Union over the years. The lure of the European Union is still powerful, and future enlargement matters a great deal. There has been widespread concern about the difficulties being experienced by Romania and Bulgaria. Let us not lose sight of the massive progress that they have made. We must hope that they can show that they have caught up with expectations by the time of the next summit. Elsewhere, the development of Croatia, and in particular its compliance—eventually—with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was a major step forward and has to have something to do with the prospect of membership of the European Union.
	Like many others, I celebrate Montenegro's vote earlier this month to become a separate country, and I welcome the fact that the British Government have now recognised it as such. Countries such as Montenegro may in future aspire to membership of the European Union. It is important that we have that prospect there for them, and that we help them in that desire. Right now, our focus is increasingly on Turkey. It was nearly a bad week for the talks, but it was important that the discussions began in earnest. The wrangles are a reminder of the problems, but it is vital, not just for Turkey but for all of us, that progress can be seen to be made on its behalf, however slow the road to membership may be.
	Quite apart from those important matters, as the Foreign Secretary herself remarked, a lot of time will be required for debates about foreign policy matters at the summit over the next couple of days. I am glad to hear of the issues that she expects to be up for discussion at the summit—particularly in relation to Iran. After months, if not years, of growing concern, recent developments there have been reasonably encouraging. I think that there is complete agreement that for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons would be completely unacceptable. Any enrichment process for a civil nuclear programme has got to have adequate mechanisms and safeguards—and crucially attract trust—to win support across the world. What matters about our negotiating position with Iran is that we get the balance right between the opportunities and the threats if Iran does not respond. In recent weeks the willingness of the United States to talk to Iran has been a major breakthrough, and we must welcome that. The six nations talks have been able to make some progress, and we hope to hear more about that after the weekend.
	In the middle east this is as sensitive a time as ever, in the context of Prime Minister's Olmert's visit to Europe and the international community's funding for the Palestinian Authority. As the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks already observed from personal experience, having been there, the situation is stark. The assessment of the United Nations is that a quarter of the Palestinian Authority's people are dependent on salaries from the Palestinian Authority, and that without external funding, poverty rates in the occupied territories are expected to rise from 56 per cent. to74 per cent. over the next couple of years. That estimate may be on the cautious or conservative side.
	We recognise the need for Hamas to support the Quartet principles: to renounce violence, to recognise the state of Israel, and to accept previous peace agreements. However, we need the most careful diplomacy and some assistance from all sides if we are to make some progress. After his final visit to the middle east as Foreign Secretary, our present Leader of the House hinted that the international community had to be prepared to give a little bit of ground—as well as elsewhere. I have written to the Foreign Secretary to seek clarification of that, and I hope that the Minister might be able to answer that point in his closing remarks. What is the international community willing to do, and how will it ensure that we get the temporary international mechanism in place as soon as possible? The delay in establishing that mechanism is surely exacerbating the situation, and it is not yet clear whether the funds to be provided will be sufficient, nor is it clear how long they will last. The summit must attend to that urgently.
	In anticipation of the United States-European Union summit, which will follow in a week or so, I hope, too, that the European Union will have some discussion of rendition. We have seen today's Amnesty International report, which is highly critical of the particular cases in the United Kingdom. Last week's Council of Europe report was scathing. Like many hon. Members—the matter was raised under points of order earlier—I have tabled questions to the Home Secretary asking about particular flights that came to the United Kingdom; they have yet to be answered after three months.
	The Government have been explicit that they do not support extraordinary rendition. However, they do not seem at all willing to ask questions of the United States to find out the answers to the serious questions that are being put. Far from it, we learn from a letter that I received from the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence that the United Kingdom is content to have standing arrangements of which the three wise monkeys would approve. We have got to do better than that. There may be a great deal of embarrassed shuffling of feet around the summit tables, but Europe has got to come to terms with the issue and clean its hands.
	The expectations for this summit are desperately low. Perhaps ahead of the French presidential elections and the Dutch general election nothing much can be achieved. Certainly, there is not a diplomat I have spoken to or a commentator I have read who expects anything much at all. That is a great pity. There is much that could and should be done, not just for the credibility of the European Union but for the reality of everyday life in Europe. It will not be hard to beat expectations; let us hope that there is a real attempt to do so.

Doug Henderson: It has already been said that the same people participate in these debates on every occasion, so I suppose that I should plead guilty to being one of the usual suspects. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) is nodding approvingly. It has also been suggested that95 per cent. of what is said in these debates was said during the previous debate before a Council meeting. I must admit that I was surprised about that, because I imagine that few in the Chamber can remember 5 per cent. of what they said six months ago, far less 95 per cent. We must all be operating on automatic pilot to an extent, so I suppose that I should plead guilty to that, too.
	Before I mention the summit, it is important to point out the development of the European Union. It started in 1956 as an economic treaty, which was a response to a Europe that had been badly divided militarily, politically and economically in the early 1950s. For the next 35 years, the European Economic Community, which became the European Community, concentrated largely on social and economic issues, so those matters dominated the summits. However, by the time of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, developments began to occur. The Community recognised that one cannot have a cogent economic policy in a global world without having a cogent foreign policy because, for example, political events in the middle east clearly affect the world economy. The Maastricht treaty thus empowered the Community to take a common view on foreign policy.
	Developments took place in the 1990s and the Community started to say, "We want to take action on foreign policy." It was absolutely right to do so, although I know that not everyone in the Chamber agrees. It was illogical to have economic and foreign policy wings without a defence wing because intervention on foreign policy often cannot take place without a defence capability. By the Nice summit in 2000, therefore, the European security policy was developed. If one believes that the European Union is necessary to bind together European nations with common values and cultures and a desire for the same kind of things in life, the Community must have those wings, which is why I support the approach.
	I am not saying that every structure is right. I have followed the arguments that have been made about transparency, although a little more has been made about the openness of European Council meetings than might be merited, given the reality of the way in which the meetings are conducted. I have never known a President, Prime Minister or Foreign Minister to say anything in a Council meeting that was not reported in every newspaper in Europe that wanted to report it. What happens at European Council meetings is no secret. The positions that are stated are immediately reported. I have some sympathy with my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary because we know that if every meeting is completely open, there will be meetings on the side in which confidential positions might be expressed. It is thus not right to pretend that such transparency will do anything to open up or democratise the European Union, so we must examine other approaches.
	The role of national Parliaments is important. The European Parliament has no locus with regard to defence policy, so it is important that national Parliaments take a keen interest in what happens on their behalf in the European Union, and that is the area on which I want to address my comments about the summit.
	As the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore) said, expectations for the summit are limited. I was in Helsinki last week with the Western European Union Assembly Defence Committee. We were given a preview of what the Finnish presidency might consider following the Austrian presidency. One of the country's ministry of defence officials said that his aim was to make sure that he did not drop the baton during his six months. I understand that and, in some ways, it reflects the reality of EU presidencies.
	Each presidency lasts only six months, but not much changes or moves politically over six months. A process that starts during a presidency might be taken forward a little by the next presidency, with something happening in three or four years. The fact that a presidency lasts only six months makes it difficult to do anything, although that problem was addressed by the constitution, to which hon. Members have referred.
	The second problem is that it is difficult to have continuity and coherence in the selection of matters for discussion when 25 views are presented and each country has an equal opportunity to put its views. Some nations—Finland was quite open about this—do not have the capacity to run a presidency in the way in which Germany, France or the United Kingdom may do because of their size. It is thus understandable that success for a Finnish presidency would be not to drop the baton.
	A general point needs to be made. We all have these debates before summits. Every nation sets out its stall and then has six months to do what it can, after which there is reflection. However, it is rare that the agenda that is promised two or three months before start of a presidency—the Finns are going through that process now—reflects the issues that are discussed in the Council meeting six months later. The matters that will be discussed at the Council meeting in Vienna tomorrow are not those that the Austrians promised six months ago, which becomes clear if one looks at the content of our debate at that time. Enlargement is clearly important, but there was a lot more talk at the time about making progress on the economic front, such as on the Lisbon agenda and the financial services directive, although, to my knowledge, little has changed on that over the past six months and, indeed, it has not been addressed to any great extent.
	One of the problems with the structure is that one must always monitor what is happening across the three faces of the European Union: the economic, foreign policy and defence fronts. No presidency can concentrate on all three fronts, but an event that happens during the six months, such as an oil price shock, the invasion of a country that affects the interests of the European Union, a civil war, or a major migration, can immediately become important. If no focus is put on the structures necessary to deal with such events in advance, the European Union becomes an impotent organisation. That is why even through the Austrians tell us that European security and defence policy is not a main focus for the summit, given some of the things that I want to anticipate—I will not go on for too long—ESDP will be important. We should thus monitor it to ensure that we are doing what we should to execute the policy.
	We are all aware of the threats that we face under ESDP. There is complete agreement about the threat from failed states of terrorism and the threat of environmental and other natural disasters. Although I am a strong advocate of a European Union that is bound together, I am also strongly in favour of NATO because of the defence interests of the United Kingdom. Many EU member states have also realised that their defence is crucially dependent on NATO. Before some argue that ESDP is all very well, but the real defence of the country is something else and we do not want a European army, I point out that the argument that is put for a European defence policy is not against NATO, but an argument that NATO should be complemented. I have found that that is the case in not only this country, but, increasingly, throughout Europe.

Doug Henderson: I took a note of what the hon. Gentleman said, because I know that he is always very precise and will not let me get away with giving him an imprecise answer.
	I have already said that the resources must be there or none of this will work: it will just be hot air. As for the European Defence Agency, many European defence companies supply the EU nations. In a sense, the agency is a common procurement agency operating on a voluntary basis. That is a good development. I do not envisage the creation of compulsory procurement systems through the EDA; the aim is to encourage different nations.
	On Solana's role, the European Union is a major economic and political unit. If it sits down at the World Trade Organisation or at other international agencies and if it liaises with NATO and the United Nations on the contribution that it can make in, for example, Afghanistan, someone of high standing must be present to articulate the views of the EU. That does not mean that the high representative or co-ordinator of foreign policy in the EU is higher in the pecking order than the Foreign Secretary in Britain or her equivalents in Germany and France. That is not the case. Anyone who does not believe me needs only to go to a European Council meeting where it will become immediately obvious that the high representative is not the main player. However, he is an important player, and it is right that he should be.
	There is instability in Kosovo and the problems with energy policy in Nagorno-Karabakh may well require a military intervention at some stage in the future. Moldova is a problem and I see trouble potentially moving from the middle east into Turkey if it does not spill over into Turkey from Iraq, which is also possible at some stage. Many border issues will be crucial to the interests of the European Union in the coming period, so there are many reasons why the ESDP is an important pillar within the EU's structures. It should receive serious consideration at all summit meetings and not just when there is a particular emergency. I am sure that that is the overwhelming view of people in Europe. We have the same values and the same cultures and we want the same things. We want to be defended and co-operate in our defence, and that is why these issues are important for the Austrians in the next weeks, for the Finns in the following six months and for the other nations that take over the presidency in the future.

Michael Ancram: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson). He is a glutton for punishment in these debates, and I suspect that I am becoming the same. In my four years as shadow Foreign Secretary, I spoke from the Front Bench on, I think, eight occasions. I missed the last European debate, because I thought that it would be a great relief not to have to be here, but I have been tempted back today. I see that the former Foreign Secretary—now the Leader of the House—has not been so tempted after the many times that he addressed the House on European issues, although he pushed his nose around the door just now to see what was going on. He took one look at us all and fled. Unlike the rest of us, he is not a glutton for punishment.
	I congratulate my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary on his tremendously powerful, positive and aggressive speech. The arguments that he deployed have given many of us comfort about where our party is going on Europe at this time. I was delighted that he was able to produce so much new material; I think he said that about 85 per cent. of it was new. I managed to find new material for my first two speeches but, after that, I started altering the order in which I delivered the paragraphs, if only to keep myself awake.
	I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak. I wanted to do so because I think that something serious is happening within the EU but that we are somehow missing the plot in that we all assume that the European constitution is dead. We do not like using that word, but that is the impression that has been created in the past months in many debates on the subject. If we really persuade ourselves of that, we will be taken for a very big ride.
	I asked the Foreign Secretary about the completion of the process on the constitution. I said that when I was shadow Foreign Secretary, I was given to understand that, two years after the signing of the constitution, it had to be ratified by all 25 member states. That was made clear to us in a particular way, not least, it was made clear when I pressed for an early referendum from the Government on the issue and was told, "No, no. We've got two years in which to ratify and we intend to hold our referendum towards the end of that two-year period rather than towards the beginning."
	Suddenly all that has changed. At a relatively unnoticed meeting of the Council of Ministers the other day, the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers decided that they were going to extend the period within which the completion of the constitution could take place. The Foreign Secretary described it today as the extension of the period of reflection for a year, which sounds innocuous. I take what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) says about sitting and thinking and just sitting. But what is happening is neither. What is on offer is a means of trying to find a way to fly in the face of the verdicts of two members of the EU who expressed quite clearly through referendums their view that they did not want the constitution to go through.
	We talk about coming closer to the people of Europe and listening to what they have to say, but what we have here is our Government being complicit with many other Governments in deciding that if they keep the process of reflection rolling on for long enough, the constitution will come back again in the end. That is a dangerous precedent to set in a Europe that is asking its citizens to have faith in what it is doing. It is an extraordinary move and I believe that, in some ways, it drew its inspiration from the almost incredible fact that, since last year's no votes in France and Holland, the reaction from the Government in this country on the vital question of the future structure of Europe has been a spectacularly deafening silence. I listened with great care to what the Foreign Secretary said today. She did not mention structure. She talked about the nuts and bolts, but she did not talk about the machine or the vehicle. Yet only two or three years ago in all the debates that we had on the constitution, those issues were the important ones for the Government in the development of Europe. Now there is just deafening silence, and that is why we are in danger of beingtaken in.
	In that context, I very much welcome the speeches of my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary—the one that he delivered today and the one that he gave last week. If I may say to him in a friendly way, they have been somewhat long in coming, but it is important that they have now been made. However, for everyone else there is almost the feeling that the future structure of Europe is the issue that dare not speak its name. I was amazed to be told by a senior journalist on a national newspaper—I will not say which paper—that, "We don't do Europe any more."
	I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but it is almost as though the political class—that informal alliance of politicians, journalists and academics—is somehow conspiring to ensure that the natural Eurosceptic instinct of the British people is contained. It is almost as though they hope that, with enough silence, the British people will lose their antipathy to the European project and will allow it to be achieved by default. If they believe that, they will be disappointed, because I do not think that the British people will so easily be turned round. However, if we are not careful, that conspiracy of silence will allow us in the House to be misled.

Michael Ancram: The hon. Lady may well hear, as my speech progresses, what I think should be done. I no longer speak from the Front Bench, but she may recognise some echoes of what I said before, when I did speak from it.
	What is really irritating about the silence is that it comes at a time when the opportunity to influence the future development of Europe has never been greater. I use an analogy that I have used before, but for the last 30 years the development of what is known in Europe as the project has often been described as a single-track train journey towards a country called Europe. We were told that if we were not on the train, we were somehow out of the game. That was the argument put to us. Those who have sought to stand in the way of the train—I see some in their places today—found themselves well and truly bulldozed. The treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, Nice and the second treaty of Rome all drove forward in one direction only. That was the train moving forward. It seemed unstoppable, indivertible and irresistible. Those who argued otherwise and sought another way for Europe were parodied by people in Brussels as prejudiced politicians whistling in the wind.
	Then, suddenly, the wind dropped. Suddenly, the train ground to a halt, not because Brussels lost heart or saw the light, but simply because the peoples of France and Holland looked towards the country of Europe and said no—as, indeed, we would have done in this country, had we been allowed our referendum. That allowed, for the first time in my political lifetime, a real chance to re-open the debate on the future structure of Europe, to explore different structures, to look at different shapes and different tracks.
	What I call the Europhiles could no longer argue that the issue was settled and non-negotiable, that the acquis could not be revisited, that the pass was sold. Indeed, the Prime Minister, in last year's speech to the European Parliament, effectively accepted and positively proclaimed that the post-referendum era provided a new opportunity for reform. We had the chance at long last not only to press for but to achieve progress on the renegotiation of the treaties as the price for agreeing a sustainable European Union for the future. We had the chance, in my view, to retrieve some areas of sovereignty that we should never have surrendered in the first place as the bottom line for building a more flexible Europe that could absorb and manage EU enlargement.
	I was delighted to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) talk last week about the work that needed to be done to complete the single market, on which we all felt strongly that the benefits of the EU for the peoples of Europe would depend. He also spoke about co-operation on energy and pollution. We all know that positive measures can be taken and built on to allow the EU to serve its people. Equally, however, I am looking for us to use this opportunity to go further and look for fundamental treaty reform, which we were told was impossible because the train was running. Now that the train has stopped, why cannot we begin to examine it in detail again? Instead of grasping that opportunity, we are now in danger of seeing it squandered.

Gisela Stuart: I am happy to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), even though I did not get a chance to ask him how the Conservatives will provide that great leadership outside the European People's party. However, I leave that problem to them to solve.
	When preparing my speech, I went through all the possible jokes about the constitution, becoming more and more desperate. In the end, I decided on what Bertolt Brecht said in 1953 after an unsuccessful election in the then East Germany: "Would it therefore not be better to dismiss the people and elect a new one?" That is what is going on in Europe in relation to the constitution.
	Rather than rehearse the old arguments, I want to put to Ministers three reasons why the constitution did not address certain faultlines, and why, even if it were possible to revise the document, reintroducing it would not be in the interests of Europe in the next 10, 20 or30 years, but first I should like to make a small confession of my most significant error during the negotiations. Just before the end of the process, French colleagues, in particular, were strongly in favour of inserting a clause stating that a country that failed to ratify the constitution within two years would be asked to leave the European Union. I fought against that provision because the French and others favoured it only because they were absolutely convinced that it would be Britain that said no in a referendum. With hindsight, I think it would have been rather amusing to see what happened with France and Holland if the clause had been inserted.
	My three main points can be summarised as: buns and babies, big ones and little ones, and ins and outs. Buns and babies was a phrase that Giuliano Amato, one of the vice-chairmen of the Convention, used in its latter stages. He kept telling us that we had to make up our minds whether we wanted to create buns or babies in the constitution. Some people wanted buns—something that was defined and that could not grow or change in nature. At one stage, the Germans were keen on the idea that the constitution should clearly delineate the powers of the Commission and member states and could not be altered. Those who were in favour of babies, particularly the Liberal Democrats, wanted organic law—something that would allow within itself the creation of new powers.
	The constitution does not answer that question. It does not define powers, but it allows an element of organic development. The debate across Europe on whether the constitution should be a defining document has not been resolved. It remains one of the big faultlines, as we see in the statement that the Foreign Secretary made to the Foreign Affairs Committee. My right hon. Friend said that the Council would discuss the provisions of article 42 of the treaty of the European Union, known as the passerelle, whereby decisions are transferred from requiring unanimity to requiring a qualified majority. That is a classic organic law mechanism, and it is still available. I am not suggesting that the proposal is wrong—it is probably necessary in a union of 30—but it has not been debated and there is no accountability.

Shailesh Vara: It is heartening that the hon. Gentleman is paying attention to my grammar, but I would prefer him to pay more attention to his Government's lack of action. There are more pressing and urgent matters to be discussed.
	Central to all this is leadership by the Government. Despite the warm words and fine-sounding rhetoric from the Foreign Secretary earlier, sadly, it is not matched by the actions and record of her Government, who have shown anything but leadership. At first the Prime Minister was happy to disagree with having a referendum on the European Union constitution. After a while, he was happy to say that we ought to have a referendum. During Britain's presidency, the Prime Minister said that our rebate was not negotiable, only to give away £2 billion a year in return for a meaningless promise to review farming spending in 2008.
	If ever there was an example of a Minister living in a parallel universe, it was the description of the constitution by the person who is now the Secretary of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland as a "tidying-up exercise". When the new Minister for Europe spoke today to try to clarify the Government's position on the European Union, he fudged the issue again. There we have it. The French have said no to the European Union constitution, the Dutch have said no, and the Prime Minister has said no and yes to a referendum. The Prime Minister held the presidency of the European Union for six months, there were many statements and speeches, and the bottom line is that the Government are still undecided what to do about the European Union. If ever there was an example of a lack of leadership, that must be it.

William Cash: On the question of a referendum on Maastricht, for which I campaigned with other colleagues and got a petition presented to Parliament with no less than 500,000 signatures, does my hon. Friend accept that it was precisely because those of us who fought for that referendum managed to get the British people on our side—ensuring at the same time that the dark forces on both sides of the House who were against asking the British people were defeated—that we now have an established policing of insisting on a referendum? He is therefore on the side of light and new horizons, whereas those who opposed a referendum have been abolished.

Shailesh Vara: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for those comments—and to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) for being so articulate, enthusiastic and correct in his historical analysis.
	My hon. Friend's comments lead me—if we are to discuss Maastricht—on to another point. The previous Conservative Government won a number of concessions, but sad to say, this Government have quietly given way and conceded on several issues on which we had preserved the right of veto; instead, we will now be faced with decisions of unanimity. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) shakes her head, but the history of this Government will say more than her shaking of her head. What is required is decisive leadership, and a Government with principles for which they have the courage to stand up and fight, rather than simply looking for the next headline in the next news bulletin.
	Britain's future lies in and with Europe, but that future must be based on co-operation and mutual support, not on a central Government of a "United States of Europe". European leaders must start to listen to the wishes of their citizens and put aside their personal obsessions about further integration. We have European Union leaders who are keen to promote democracy to those in the European Union, to those who wish to join, and, indeed, to the rest of the world. Yet when, under the process of democracy, people in the European Union spoke and decided in a referendum that they did not want a constitution, those same leaders, who preach so fervently to others, refused to listen to the message of, and the answer to, that referendum. There is an irony in that, and those leaders who preach abroad should listen to their own citizens.
	The citizens of Europe have spoken. They have said that they do not wish for further integration. They have said, "Enough is enough," and that phrase has the same meaning regardless of which language it is said in: enough is enough.

Mike Gapes: No, that is his name. If my hon. Friend cannot pronounce it, he can call him Erkki. Mr. Tuomioja said the other day that it was wrong—and everybody agrees—to call it a constitution. We have already been reminded of the absurd remarks by former French President Giscard d'Estaing that somehow France has not decided because only 55 per cent. of the people voted no. Presumably, in his view of democracy, 101 per cent. would have to vote no before a decision could be reached. That attitude reflects a problem with engagement with reality that is found in many countries.
	At the same time, we have to face the fact that 15 countries have ratified the treaty, either through parliamentary mechanisms or referendums, and another four or five—potentially more—could do so. Therefore, the issue is not going away and in 2009 or thereabouts we will have to confront it seriously. That might coincide with the next general election, so all the parties will have to get out of the comfort zone in which they are at present because nothing is happening. I would be grateful if, when my right hon. Friend responds to the debate—as he is well qualified to do, because of his great expertise and experience in these matters—he can tell us how the debate can be taken forward in this country in the coming months.
	We also need to confront the potential further enlargement of the EU. The question of Croatia is the most straightforward, but Macedonia is also a possibility. Therefore, we need to think about what will happen with the rest of the Balkans. One of the few positive things in the Balkans is the aspiration of everybody there almost to recreate Yugoslavia within the European Union. The way forward to ending the nationalistic conflicts and divisions is to get the people back together, and allow free movement of people, by bringing them into the European family. If we put up barriers to the Balkan countries, we could face serious difficulties, including conflict, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and with the Serbia-Kosovo issue, which has already been mentioned. If the latter is not resolved, it could become very difficult in a few months' time, because the Kosovars believe that they will get independence and the Serbs are adamantly opposed. There is no possibility of any significant shift in those positions at present.
	We also face the problem of definition of the Europe of the future. What will be the ultimate borders of an enlarged European Union? People have talked about the absorptive capacity of the existing institutions, but the Polish Government have argued that Belarus and Ukraine should be in the EU. That means that we need to think not only about that capacity, but about the potential borders of the EU. We have seen demonstrations in the Crimea and tensions between Ukraine and Russia. I attended a meeting in the European Parliament two weeks ago at which Members of the European Parliament and representatives from national Parliaments in the Baltic states denounced the Foreign Minister of Austria, Mrs. Plassnik, because the Austrian presidency had not raised strongly enough with the Russians the territorial disputes between Estonia and Russia that predate Estonia's accession. I was never aware that the Estonians, in the process of negotiating the acquis and joining the EU, raised territorial issues with Russia as something that the EU should resolve. Nevertheless, problems will occur if such matters are not handled carefully. For example, another difficulty will arise if—or rather, when—Romania joins the EU. A few months ago, a senior Romanian politician told me that 20 per cent. of Moldovan citizens already had Romanian passports. Moldova is not in the EU and is not close to joining it, for all sorts of reasons.
	A very interesting article talked about the consequences of the referendum in Montenegro and the growth of new states in Europe, but the frozen conflict in Moldova and Transnistria continues. If we are to enlarge the EU, therefore, we must also think about the strategic and political implications for Europe's borders.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) spoke about the need to consider the EU's defence capability and collective security. He was right to do so, but other questions arise. For example, if there is a conflict between neighbouring EU states, at what point does the EU collectively become engaged? We need to consider such matters when we think about the future of Europe, but there is either a conspiracy of silence or people get obsessed with the constitutional minutiae. As the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) put it, people do not want to mention the war or the Maastricht treaty because to do so would raise embarrassing questions about our own past beliefs.
	All hon. Members have an embarrassing past when it comes to Europe—

Robert Walter: We were warned at the beginning of the debate that we were the same old anoraks, saying the same old things every six months on the subject of the European Council meeting, as if we were unaware of the agenda of that meeting. However, we have heard some quite interesting new thoughts and fresh ideas in this debate. We have not all been rehearsing the same old ideas—certainly not so far—although occasionally we have tended to go back and refer to thoughts on the constitution.
	The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, may have misunderstood the French language in his reference to Giscard d'Estaing, who acknowledged that 55 per cent. of the French people had voted against the constitution, but said that that did not mean that France was against the constitution. That rather reminds me of a headline in  Le Figaro a couple of months ago which said that Dominique de Villepin spoke to France, but Nicolas Sarkozy spoke with the people of France. That reflects a nuance or difference in the minds of the French political elite as to what constitutes France.
	I want to refer to some thoughts that have been rehearsed by other Members about transparency and scrutiny in the European Union. I also want to look a little at our relationships with our neighbours outside the Union—particularly Norway and Turkey—and to concentrate some of my remarks on an issue that the Foreign Secretary did not talk about: European security and defence policy. I mentioned in an earlier intervention that the European Union took the decision in April to launch a new military mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which will take place next month, surrounding the elections there.
	I was amazed—a number of other Members have referred to this and the Foreign Secretary did respond—that there appeared to be some backtracking on something that was even in constitution. I am talking about the idea that we should have greater transparency in Council of Ministers meetings and European Council meetings. The Foreign Secretary gave the regrettable impression that the Council of Ministers, which is, after all, a legislative body, even if it is not a Parliament—it does not always discuss legislation; sometimes it has reflective debates, rather like today's debate—should for ever and a day continue to hold its deliberations in private and in secret. If we are going to scrutinise effectively and re-engage effectively with the peoples of Europe, we have to have greater transparency in the meetings of the Council of Ministers.
	I criticised the provisions of the constitution during previous debates because they seemed to suggest that cameras would be allowed in only for the vote. The debate would thus take place, with the cameras then coming in to record how Ministers were voting. It is suggested that if we replicated that in the House, we would take the cameras out of the Chamber and put them in the Division Lobby, which would allow us to hold our debates in private.

Robert Walter: I accept that point. We must examine the matter in different ways to take account of our traditions and practices. However, as I said in response to the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East, that does not mean that we cannot learn something from the Finnish procedure in practice.
	According to a movement that has existed in this country for some time in certain quarters, we could somehow establish a different relationship with the European Union. The example of Norway is often cited. I was encouraged by the robust confirmation and reinforcement of our commitment to Britain's EU membership that we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). I do not think that this country can have any role in some kind of semi-detached or associate relationship.
	Norway is one of the Scandinavian countries that I visited. The Norwegian Parliament and Government have a better record on implementation of EU directives than most EU member states. The House of Commons Library kindly provided me with some data. The European Commission has an implementation report score card based on the percentage of directives that have not been implemented by EU member states and members of the European economic area. Norway has failed to implement l per cent. of directives. The Commission's target allows a country to have a non-implementation record of up to 1.5 per cent. The United Kingdom has failed to implement 2.5 per cent. of directives. Our non-implementation record is 2.5 times worse than that of Norway, which is not even a member of the EU but implements its directives none the less, sometimes with some enthusiasm.
	I do not know whether those who suggest that a Norwegian relationship would be advantageous to this country are thinking of the fact that Norway is a signatory to the Schengen acquis, and therefore has open borders with the rest of the EU and no border controls in relation to the EU and its member states. Its only border controls relate to states outside the EU, states that are not party to the Schengen agreement—including the United Kingdom—and its own territory of Svarlbad, or Spitzbergen, for those with older atlases.
	The other point about Norway is that it makes budget contributions to the European Union. Over the coming year it will contribute some €33 million, which is a fair amount of money for quite a small country. Norway's contribution works out at about €50 a head, while that of the United Kingdom is only €76 a head. The financial benefit of our moving to a "Norwegian position" would amount to about €26 a head. I would not be prepared to make a saving of that order if it meant sacrificing our position in the EU in terms of control and government.
	Along with Turkey, Norway is also one of the major contributors to the European security and defence policy. Accounts of EU missions in connection with the ESDP often reveal Norway and Turkey, which are not members of the EU, to be major contributors of troops and finance. For example, I think that Norway has more than 1,000 troops committed to Operation Altea in Bosnia, which is the largest of the EU's military operations.
	I hope that the Minister for Europe will be able to respond to my next point. On 27 April, the Council of Ministers took the decision, through a joint action, to send troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Theoretically, this should have been the first test of the EU battlegroup concept. However, there has been a sad failure to test the concept despite the fact that the European Council took a decision in 2004 to create13 battlegroups with about 1,500 troops each. They would provide the rapid reaction force capability that we are also sadly lacking or getting anywhere near to achieving. Four of the 13 battlegroups would be made up of members from a single nation and the other nine would be multinational and also include members from non-EU states such as Norway. The plan was to have the interim operational capacity of the battlegroups up and running in 2005, but we have still not got that, and they were supposed to come to full operational capacity in 2007. We are only six months away from that, but have just missed the first opportunity to test the battlegroup concept.

Eric Illsley: I will keep my remarks brief, but I want to make one or two comments about the European summit later this week. I begin by remarking on energy issues. I understand that the question of energy will be discussed at the summit, and I very much welcome that in view of what has happened to energy prices in this country over the past few months. The Government have embarked on an energy review and I understand that the summit will discuss a short paper that has been drawn up by Javier Solana and the Commission on security of supply, competitiveness and environmental sustainability.
	The markets in Europe are not liberalised, and the problems that we experience in this country often stem from the fact that we have a liberalised market while our colleagues in Europe do not. I therefore ask the Minister what the discussion is likely to achieve. I understand that it is due to finish in the presidencies next year with another form of review, but I hope that our Ministers at the summit will press our European colleagues for the liberalisation of European markets in order that we can buy supplies of energy in other countries.
	Earlier this year, our gas prices in particular were increasing rapidly, yet there was no shortage of supply worldwide. We could not access other sources of gas in order to bring those prices down. Members will remember that in January the Russians turned off the gas supplies to Ukraine, and that generated fears that Russia would be in command of gas supplies to the rest of Europe. I understand that European Commissioners have suggested deals between the EU and the Russians to ensure that supplies flow to the rest of Europe. However, the Germans have already signed a separate deal with the Russians on a gas pipeline, which could well undermine the efforts that are to be made at the summit on agreeing a common energy policy. The point that I want to leave with my right hon. Friend the Minister is that he must press for the liberalisation of the markets in Europe in order that we can access them.
	I also want to say a few words on the constitution. Those issues have been well rehearsed throughout this debate and references have been made to our Ministers perhaps needing to take a stronger line and to state that, in fact, the constitution is dead. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and I had an exchange on that, during which I referred to the fact that there were calls from politicians throughout the EU for further referendums, votes and the rest of it and that our Ministers would do well to be non-committal on the constitution in the light of those calls.
	I understand that the period of reflection has been increased for another year, yet those calls still appear in our press. For example, Giscard d'Estaing has called for a second French vote—55 per cent. obviously was not enough for him—the Italians have called for further action on the constitution, the Germans have already said that they want constitutional issues to be resurrected, and the Belgian Prime Minister has drawn attention to the fact that about 15 states have now ratified the constitution and that, according to a clause in the constitution, if that figure increases to four fifths of member states, unique circumstances are created which mean that the constitution must be referred back to the European Council. I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe to resist such a reference back to the European Council and perhaps, despite what I said earlier, to be a little more vociferous in playing down the constitution and the possibility of its resurrection.
	Another worrying development is the calls for a Europe-wide referendum. If that were to be agreed, it would negate all the no votes that have already happened and could lead to countries being drawn into a European constitution without having had the chance to hold their own individual referendums. I call on my right hon. Friend to resist those calls at all costs.
	I shall now say a few words about Turkey and Cyprus. Earlier this week, a small crisis in Europe was averted when the Cypriots gave way and allowed the accession negotiations with Turkey to complete chapter 1—an uncontroversial chapter relating to science and research. However, obstacles to Turkey's membership of the EU remain, not least opposition from other countries within the EU—Germany and France, in particular—that are reluctant to see Turkey accepted.
	There are also obstacles within Turkey itself: for example, the human rights situation in that country, especially in the Kurdish region, is a cause of great concern. Religious issues, including the question whether Turkey is a secular state, have come to the forefront in the past few days. A Turkish general attacked Turkey's Government for not adhering more strongly to the secular state, and we hear stories of the "deep state", as it is known in Turkey, where the military is influential. A few weeks ago, there was a disturbing incident when an individual walked into Turkey's highest administrative court and shot dead the judge who was presiding in a case, simply because, as the offender said afterwards, the judge had made a decision on banning religious apparel.
	Such incidents sound alarm bells for Turkey's accession to the EU. Just as many people want our Government to say that the constitution is dead and we should not heed calls for further votes, perhaps we should decide once and for all whether it is appropriate to persist with the idea of Turkey's accession in spite of all the problems in that country.

William Cash: Having listened to European debates at periodic intervals in the past22 years, I have noticed a fluctuation in sentiment. If we take a broad historical and political view, we can see that a new realism has at last begun to pervade debates in the House. The pity of it is that that is not reflected in the Government's policies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, for example, in his five economic tests, his subsequent remarks, the Treasury paper a few months ago and so on, has indicated a change of mood or tempo. If he became Prime Minister he might take a more Eurosceptic view—that is certainly the view of the journalists and distinguished commentators who have followed his career.
	None the less, others continue to speak the same old language in an attempt to square the circle. It is impossible, as I said earlier, to persist with the waffle and try to pretend that everything is all right just because the existing treaties are still in operation. We need a radical, clear-sighted, fundamental review of the European Union. That would not be difficult once it is under way, but—and my motive in saying so is not party political—the Government, for all their talk, cannot bring themselves to face reality. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) made their position quite clear shortly before he left the post of Foreign Secretary, when I pointed out that, to all intents and purposes, the European constitution was over and done with. The present Foreign Secretary tiptoed around the subject, but she was not prepared to spell out the Government's position. That is not leadership.
	In a recent debate on democracy, dialogue and debate in the European Standing Committee, the Minister for Europe, using the old Laeken language, said that we wanted to get closer to citizens. The new project, otherwise known as plan D, would provide an opportunity to reconnect with citizens and their opinions. However, when I asked him whether the Government were prepared to make the 16 million euros that that they have received in the past18 months—indeed, there is much more to come—from the European Commission available to Eurosceptic organisations or whether that funding was a Europhile propaganda exercise driven by the Commission, he was not prepared to answer. I invite him to do so on the Floor of the House this afternoon. Will the money, after proper debate and dialogue, be disbursed on an equal and fair basis among the organisations, or will the power of the state, the Commission and the purse determine the issue?
	That question arose, the House will recall, in the second referendum in Ireland. Having lost the referendum on the Nice treaty, the Irish Government changed the rules so that a lower proportion of money was available for the no vote campaign, with predictable consequences. Basically, we are wasting time, as the period of reflection is going to last another year. It is actually a period of deflection, is it not? As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) accurately pointed out, it is an attempt to prolong the silence.
	In the last European debate, I said that an eerie silence had descended on the Conservative Front Bench with regard to European matters. I am glad to say that that has gone. We are beginning to speak a more realistic language. We heard from the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), some words which, although I cannot say they filled me with a deep glow of enthusiasm about the so-called benefits of some aspects of the European Union, revealed a hard bottom line which had been overlooked by many commentators, including many of my friends.
	As I noted in a letter to  The Daily Telegraph yesterday, my right hon. Friend specifically committed the Conservative party to regaining control over social and employment and similar legislation. I pointed out that it was one thing to say we would do that, which is extremely important, and another to spell out the methods of reasserting national control. I went on to point out that on the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, 130 Conservative MPs supported mynew clause 17, which I am informed was cleared by parliamentary counsel's office as I requested. The clause stated that it would be available to a Government, or to the Opposition when in government, to pass legislation inconsistent with the European Communities Act 1972 and, in particular, directives or regulations under section 2, and that the judiciary must be bound by that provision. That is the crunch point.
	The sovereignty of the House depends ultimately on that formulation in the new clause. It states specifically that the provisions of any subsequent enactment inconsistent with the European Communities Act shall be binding in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom. That binds the Law Lords, which is where the problem lies.
	I see the sphinx-like look of the Minister for Europe. For almost two years, throughout the Maastricht debates, he and I jousted. He was—I hesitate to say the bag carrier—the runner for the late John Smith on that Bill. He and I were direct opponents on it, although his job was to table amendments that were as close to mine as possible, so that when we called a Division, the Opposition would be able to try to claim that it was theirs as well. In fact, they were following us into the Lobby, not the other way around. I will not mention your role, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as that would be inappropriate.

William Cash: I have noticed a continuing trend—it happened in the debate in the Chamber the other day. The Liberal Democrats are beginning to show a degree of realism. I have never before, for example, heard them making Eurosceptic noises, but they are beginning to do so. Although I am sure the hon. Gentleman is trying to get me to make some statement on the EPP that would suit his purposes, I can say unequivocally that both before the leadership election and subsequently, I have been given clear assurances that we will withdraw from the European People's party. I do not need to enlarge on that matter, which I know a great deal about because, when I was shadow Attorney-General and shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, I was directly responsible for advising the then leader on those very questions—I was unequivocal and wrote a clear letter in which I said that we must withdraw from the European People's party forthwith.
	The matter is tied up with the European constitution. Despite the one-year period of deflection, as I call it, Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, clearly stated on 17 November last year that she is determined to bring back the European constitution. If that is the case—I take Angela Merkel's statement at face value—why are we having another year's reflection or deflection? I have always maintained that the European Union is a national objective for Germany, because Germany wants a European Union that it can dominate through the voting system. That is Germany's national interest, but the European constitution is most emphatically not in our national interest.
	Those points are part and parcel of a bigger, broader and deeper political and historical debate about where Europe goes in the 21st century. Ultimately, it will be a question of political will and realism—the realism is apparent from the various noises off, but the political will is not apparent. In his speech to the European Parliament a few months ago, the Prime Minister stated that he wanted to show leadership, but the reforms that he said that he sought have manifestly not been delivered.
	As other hon. Members have said, an opportunity has been wasted. I accuse the Government of shirking their duty and of cowardice on a massive scale. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) did not use the same language as me, but she has said that it is time to get rid of the idea of the European constitution, which has failed and cannot sensibly be put back on the rails. It is not for us to go into the past—there are occasions when we must look at the development of those arguments over the past 20 years—because we need to live in the present. Whatever people's aspirations at the time of Maastricht, that was then and this is now, and this is not the time to hunt the snark without a compass. We need clear objectives. The British Government, the new Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Europe, who is very experienced, need to start dishing it out to the other member states in tomorrow's meeting. They need to get a sense of realism out in the open and to exercise political will.
	I have mentioned the vote by my hon. Friends in support of my Back-Bench amendment to the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, and I trust that the House of Lords will carry my amendment through. Front Benchers agreed to put in Whips as Tellers for my amendment, which was unusual, but none the less the amendment was an important statement of policy. I have suggested privately to some of my senior colleagues that it would not be a bad idea if they went out and told the rest of the world, which is why I wrote to  The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

William Cash: Well,  The Daily Telegraph's world, anyway. It was also published in  The Financial Times, and I am pursuing several other avenues. I trust that my hon. Friend is not demurring from the principles that were enunciated by going through the Lobby on that occasion.
	It is important that we come up with a design for a new Europe that is thought through, but not carried through unless serious discussions take place around the table. There will be no renegotiations or answers to these important questions unless there is a serious attempt to get down to sorting out what we want and where we are to go. Step 1 is to repudiate the European constitution. I suggest to the Minister that in parliamentary terms, a good starting point would be to remove from the Order Paper the daily reference to the European Union Bill, because that reasserts the idea that that Bill, and therefore the implementation of the European constitution, is still part and parcel of the business of this House. This is not some arcane constitutional point—it is about demonstrating political will. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston and many other Members made it clear that it is time that we abandoned the project of the constitution. Of course, I would say so, but it is interesting that it is coming from so many different quarters.
	I greatly recommend a very good book called "Design for a New Europe" by Professor Jack Gillingham from the United States. It is an endorsement from the United States by somebody who has for the past 25 years made a careful study of the way that Europe has been going. I want to use this opportunity to give a flavour of what he has to say:
	"The EU was never democratic; it had always been a project run by an elite, which in turn justified its existence by results...To save the EU, one must rethink the whole integration process...the EU has long since broken down...The malfunctioning Brussels institutions are now out of control...What's required is less a heroic feat of engineering than a new principle of construction—democracy instead of elitism...A design for a new Europe is needed now."
	As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have said much the same myself over many years, as have many of my colleagues.

William Cash: I accept that compliment. However, the essence of Conservatism is building organically upon change in a realistic, practical and pragmatic fashion. For example, Disraeli had to take a position on the policies of the mid 19th century and he helped, with John Bright from the other side of the House, to promote democracy in the late 19th century. Those who resisted that point of view 25 years earlier came around to it. The same applies to the appeasement policies of the 1930s, home rule and tariff reform. The bottom line is that we make changes and the European issue is an example of that.
	I shall conclude with a quote from the excellent book that I cited earlier. It states:
	"Electorates must be made aware that withdrawal from the EU is not an act of aggression or a betrayal of the European Idea but a simple political and economic necessity."
	I have never specifically advocated withdrawal. However, if the Government, leaders of other member states and the European Commission are not prepared to face up to the challenge of being realistic, exercising the political will to save Europe and sorting out the boundaries between co-operation and European Government—and to do something about it tomorrow, when the summit takes place, thus changing the nature of the European Union, they will betray Europe and this country.
	The Government have an opportunity to save the democracy and ensure that we move into the 21st century with economic competitiveness to answer the challenges of the new globalised world. The failure of the Lisbon agenda gives them a reason to do so. Otherwise, they merely whistle in the wind. It is the moment of truth. They can do it. I do not believe that they will but, when they fail, it will be their responsibility and the people of this country will turn against them and turn them out of office. Just as those in favour of the constitution failed in France and Holland, so the Government would have failed in this country had the question of the future of Europe been put in a referendum, as it should have been many years ago.

Keith Vaz: Some hon. Members complained that others made the same speeches in debates on European affairs. We now have the ultimate solution to the problem: we can read the book. We do not even have to participate in the debate. Even better for the Minister for Europe as he gets on his RAF plane tomorrow morning and heads off with the Foreign Secretary, the hon. Member for Stone(Mr. Cash) could record tapes for my right hon. Friends to enable them to listen to the contents of the magnificent book on their way to the European summit.
	I hope that my contribution will be as brief as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central(Mr. Illsley), because others wish to speak. The shadow Foreign Secretary said that 95 per cent. of the speeches were the same—and as has been the case since he was made shadow Foreign Secretary, 95 per cent. of his speech consisted of jokes about Ministers. I admit that the jokes were funny and had hon. Members rolling in the aisles. I am sorry that you missed it, Mr. Deputy Speaker—but perhaps you watched it on the monitors. The jokes were funny but the speech contained no substance.
	First, the right hon. Gentleman complained that the Minister for Europe had made a speech about Europe earlier today. He then complained that the Government, including the Minister for Europe, had shown no leadership. He ended his speech by saying that he agreed with several points that the Minister for Europe made in his earlier speech. I am sorry that I have not seen a copy of that speech, because it sounds like just the kind of speech that a Minister for Europe should be making.
	I wish my right hon. Friend well in his first European summit since becoming Minister for Europe, and I know that he will do a splendid job, as will the Foreign Secretary. They are a pretty powerful team. I know that when they go to the European summit they will be batting for Britain, as all Ministers, no matter from which political party they come, have done over the past 20 years—although I am sure that the Minister, being a football fanatic, will ensure that there will be a television screen on the margins of the summit so that he can watch England versus Trinidad and Tobago tomorrow. Sadly, Derby County have not made it to the World cup this year.
	I want my right hon. Friend to consider three points at the summit. The first, of course, relates to enlargement. Britain is rightly seen as the champion of enlargement. Since 1997 we have consistently supported the enlargement of the European Union that has brought so many benefits to this country. The recent Ernst and Young report on the result of the latest wave of enlargement and the arrival of the 10 new countries showed that it had benefited the economy of this country by £300 million. It is therefore no surprise that we continue to press the case for enlargement.
	I would like the Minister to come back from the summit and give us firm assurances about Bulgaria and Romania. I realise that there are problems about the admission of those two countries, but they have gone way down the line as far as the opening and closing of the various chapters are concerned. They were told that they might be admitted on 1 January 2007, although there might now be a slippage to 2008; we are told that the decision is to be put back to October 2006. It would be helpful for those two countries, and for us, if we had a firm timetable by the time the summit ended. It is also important that the Government stick to the commitment that they made earlier this year that there would be an indication by August this year on the most important aspect of enlargement as far as Romania and Bulgaria were concerned—people's freedom of movement.

Daniel Kawczynski: I returned last week from Bucharest, where I had been with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Many of the Romanian Ministers to whom we spoke highlighted very honestly their lack of readiness to join on January. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman shares those concerns, and I hope that he will continue to seek assurances from the Minister on this matter. I do not think that Romania's entry on 1 January is as clear-cut as we once thought.

Keith Vaz: It is a point, but I urge the hon. Gentleman to read the Ernst and Young report, which examines specifically the arrival of Poles, Hungarians and others from EU countries and finds that they have been a benefit to our economy. If there is new evidence, that will have to be considered. Enlargement has benefited us, however, to the tune of £300 million. In addition, other countries, having seen what Britain did, have decided to do the same. The French have agreed to open their categories so that people from the states that joined in 2004 will be able to work in France too. Obviously, we will need to keep all of that under consideration. As for Bulgaria and Romania, we should have a clear timetable and a clear decision from the Government so that we know where we stand on the issue of freedom of movement for those from the new member states.
	On the constitution, I do not object to a period of further reflection. There are still major problems with the constitution. If we had put it to the British people, I, too, believe that they would have rejected it, as the Government did not do enough work prior to any possible referendum to explain to the British people what the constitution was about. I also defer to the knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) and the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) who both represented the House on the Committee that considered the constitution. When such Members, who represent this House, scrutinise what is happening in Europe and come back here to talk about their concerns, we should listen. They would be the first to say that they raised those concerns long before the conclusion of the discussions, and many of us did not listen or hear what they had to say. Let us reflect again, but let us debate precisely what we want from what is left of the constitution.
	Let us not, however, leave Europe unable to move forward on crucial issues. There is a difference between a constitution and a rule book. We cannot run Europe according to the rules for a Europe of six or 15. We must consider the European Union as a Europe of 25—and, in 2007 or 2008, of 27. We really must change. Who do we have to thank for extending qualified majority voting and making sure Europe operated in a much more efficient way? We thank the Conservative Government who held office before 1979, who extended QMV more than any other Government in history. If we consider the results of QMV, we will find that we have been on the winning side on QMV votes on a much larger scale than any of the other big countries. The last time I looked at the figures, 90 per cent. of the times that we voted according to QMV, we won. Therefore, saying that QMV was in some way bad for Britain is wrong, because both Conservative and Labour Ministers used QMV to push through our agenda.
	The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) raised the issue of the Tampere agenda, which of course has been renamed Hague 2, which dealt specifically with justice and home affairs. As we face a Europe-wide terrorism threat, it is vital that we should work with our European partners to combat international crime. The European arrest warrant, which has come into force, has been extremely important in enabling us to combat fraud. It is equally important that we should find justice and home affairs institutions that ensure that we can work together with our European partners to combat crime. What are we so afraid of in dealing with European allies and supporters who wish to combat crime?

Keith Vaz: The Foreign Secretary has said that she will look into this whole area, as we are obliged to do, having taken part in the entire Tampere process, which started during the last Finnish presidency in 1999. We must look at that process and see whether it is in our interests. The Government will propose it if it is in our interest to combat crime by moving forward in that way. In making such a decision, I do not want to substitute my view for that of the Foreign Secretary and her experts. However, when that decision is made, the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale, West(Mr. Brady) should have the sincerity to say that it has been done in the interests of this country and of our police and intelligence services, in accordance with how they wish to combat crime.
	I make two further points in conclusion. First, ever since my time at the Foreign Office I have advocated that there should be a Minister for Europe at Cabinet level, with a department of European affairs supporting that Minister. The Foreign Office mandarins are wonderful and I pay tribute to them—the people who used to work for me at the Foreign Office were among the finest civil servants in the galaxy; they were top-quality, first-class diplomats—so I will have no problem if we have one diplomatic service for Europe. I do not think we will ever get such a service, but if we do, I am willing to bet anyone in this House that the civil servants will all be British, because they are the best in Europe. However, the problem is that the Foreign Office is very concerned about structure. Let me give an example by telling an anecdote.
	The day after I became Minister for Europe, the then Foreign Secretary took me to lunch and asked whether I would expand my portfolio. He wanted to give me responsibility for entry clearance, as well as Europe. I agreed to take on entry clearance, even though it was a very large portfolio to add to Europe, and many people thought that I was mad to do so. The Foreign Secretary said, "Because your portfolio is so big, I'm afraid you're going to have to give up Russia. Russia is so huge, as part of the Europe portfolio, that it will have to go to another Minister; otherwise you'll have more than 50 per cent. of all those portfolios." So I agreed to give up Russia.
	When I got back to my office—a wonderful office, which is now occupied by the current Minister for Europe, and I wonder nostalgically whether I might have left some of my papers in his desk—the then permanent secretary, who is now in the other place, came to see me. He said, "You can't give up Russia in exchange for entry clearance, because Russia is part of Europe in terms of the way in which the Foreign Office command is organised, so to take it out of Europe would require a complete reorganisation of the civil servants in the Foreign Office."
	Such language was possibly used to dissuade our modernising Prime Minister from doing what he should do, which is to create a ministry of European affairs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston said, that is the position in a number of other European countries. They have dedicated Ministers for European affairs and a dedicated Foreign Secretary, and there is enough work to enable all the Foreign Office Ministers to get on and do all that they have to do.
	If we take such a step, that will allow a Minister to come to the Dispatch Box regularly to be scrutinised by the European Scrutiny Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton, East (Mr. Hood), so that we can ensure that there is a proper dialogue between Brussels, the United Kingdom and the British people about what is happening in Europe. The Conservative party is of course opposed to that step, because it would give Europe a profile in the British Government that Conservatives do not want it to have. They want to scrutinise more, but they do not want a Ministry for European affairs, although that would mean more scrutiny.
	I fully support what the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee said about this House moving on, about ensuring that we scrutinise properly what is happening in Europe, and about papers arriving in time for his Committee members to read, rather than the day before, or even on the day itself; indeed, they sometimes arrive even while he is deliberating.

Alistair Burt: Bearing it in mind that the test of a free society is how decently it treats its minorities, I hope that I am not about to put that too much to the test in relation to my Front Bench colleagues and the Whips. It is a pleasure to make what is for me a rare speech on European matters, and I have enjoyed the debate this afternoon. I take the point made by other hon. Members that the atmosphere is not dissimilar to that of an end-of-term Adjournment debate, and there are some familiar faces who have taken part in all of those.
	I share strongly with the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) the opinion that Europe is much too important a subject to be left to a handful of aficionados who either take an interest in the matter outside the Chamber, as I do, or take part in our debates. I suggest to the Minister for Europe that one way to deal with that might be to have this debate on a motion that we could divide the House on, with a free vote. There are precious few free votes in this House. The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor), my successor in that constituency, introduced a 10-minute Bill earlier designed to engage people more in political affairs, but we could achieve that by having many more free votes. We all know what our postbags are like on free votes, especially when the issue is in doubt and Members can say what they think and influence policy by doing so. I am not saying what the motion should be and I have no idea what the result would be, but it would fill the House and the Galleries and create the interest that we want.

Alistair Burt: As soon as I suggest the idea of a free vote, ideas and suggestions about possible votes emerge. However, I digress so let me move on.
	We have had an enjoyable debate. As someone who takes part in such debates only intermittently, I always learn a great deal from colleagues on both sides of the House. Over Whitsuntide, I travelled to Serbia, Macedonia and Albania. While the legacy of communism is not hard to find in eastern Europe, it is always encouraging and illuminating to see what has survived despite it. The reason for my visit was to celebrate the activities of a remarkable group of young people whom I have come to know in recent years. They come from many different countries in the Balkans, but they share a determination to go into public life with integrity in lands where trust, honesty and integrity have been heavy casualties in a dictatorship of fear. Working together, and mostly sharing a belief that the principles of Jesus Christ form an opportunity to come together and not divide, whatever one's religious background, they have slowly begun to emerge in more senior positions in politics, business and the media in their own countries. That has been the result of great commitment and dedication. At the third Balkan gathering in Belgrade, more than 150 people came together to celebrate the fact that the human spirit could not be crushed, and that faith and principle had been adduced only temporarily by repression and corruption. As with apartheid, the agony is not that dictatorship fails—it always does—but that it succeeds all too well in damaging mind and soul, leaving a moral and material vacuum that takes time to fill.
	The countries that I am talking about are on their way. They boast busy capitals, where young people enjoy cafés, bars and restaurants. The atmosphere is open and modern but, under the surface, all three countries are poor. Unemployment is at around 35 to 40 per cent., and foreign investment is low. Politics is fiercely contested but democratic—the recent referendum to detach Montenegro from Serbia rested on a knife edge. The forthcoming election in Macedonia will be close, but is likely that a centre-right Government will be returned. A Government of similar colour was returned in Albania last year, after losing power eight years. That is an example of the sort of turn-and-turn-about politics of which this House would be proud.
	Infrastructure is poor. Roads, services and transport links need investment, and professionals are poorly rewarded. A teacher in Albania, for example, will work for €240 a month—not an uncommon salary for a public-sector professional.
	Old socialist attitudes die hard. An excellent private university in Skopje struggles with a Government who are not impressed with its initiative, but students pay and flow through the doors for quality teaching. A private company is told by the Government to employ people full-time, even if the contracts are not there to support such a work force. People want domestic economic reform along lines very familiar to Conservative Members, but they fear that it is happening all too slowly.
	The worst damage has been done by the corrupt nature of government and its impact on trust and integrity. Public confidence is low, so too many talented and qualified people believe that their future can lie only outside their own land. Those who work abroad—and 1 million out of 4 million Albanians do so—send their remittances home and make a vital contribution.
	Those people, both in government and out of it, who are working to combat the trend, need our full support. I met Ministers and politicians in every country determined to make a difference. So let us salute Samuel and his team in Belgrade for their faith in their country, and for their determination to fire people with a desire to stay and work for a brighter future
	Let us also acknowledge the work of Vilma Trajkovska in Macedonia. She is the widow of a reforming president who was a key architect of the agreement that brought peace between Macedonia and Kosovo in 2001, yet who tragically died in a air crash three years later. Madam Trajkovska now heads an international foundation established in her husband's memory, and continues his work of defusing conflict and building a modern Balkans.
	Finally, let us hear it for Arian and Dorian, two young men from different political parties in Albania. They work tirelessly in a sceptical environment to bridge gaps and divides in a land where the word "opponent" normally means "enemy".
	One further theme unites all those people, and virtually all the political parties in their countries—the importance of joining the EU. It is very easy, in the democratic security of these islands, to forget the EU's political origins. We find little need to recall the shattered remnants of continental Europe, but we were never occupied. The legacy of a century or sometimes more of racial, ethnic and nationalistic conflict is the reality of everyday memory for millions of people in continental Europe. The EU's political impact as a force for stability, a yardstick for advancement and a barrier to all that ever happening again should never be discounted. There are very few members of the "Better Off Out" brigade in the western Balkans.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) is on the ball. In a recent speech, he said:
	"It cannot be doubted that the EU has been a major force in securing democracy and the rule of law in many countries that were new to those freedoms. We have seen the EU's effectiveness in the last quarter century in the Mediterranean, we have seen it in the new members from central and eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and we see it now in the Balkans and Turkey. Enlargement has been a triumphant success.
	EU membership is a sign that you are a decent trustworthy member of international society."
	Hear, hear. He repeated the comments in his excellent speech from the Front Bench this afternoon. It is easy to be blind to the faults of the EU when one comes from where the Balkan countries are coming from, but perhaps they see a truth in the existence of the EU that bears our being reminded of it. Equally, however, the EU has now got to step up to the plate. If the EU does not reform and deliver, it will risk letting down all those people who are pinning so many hopes on it.
	Even those who are interested in reform and reconstruction of the EU can now feel some greater optimism for its future. For many years, a cautious and moderate centre-right Conservative voice has warned of the worst faults of the EU, imploring it to wake up to a wider world, stop the endless self-analysis of institutions and accept that the blueprint of the 1950s, dealing with the challenges of that time, may not be the only way forward. My right hon. Friend's recent speech also had much of that spot on. He said:
	"Britain is well placed to lead and challenge some orthodoxies of recent decades that are now so clearly failing. We must replace the habits of heavy regulation and rigidity with freedom and flexibility."
	The cause that he champions there, and the reason for my sense of enthusiasm and optimism, relates to the emergence of a remarkable new leader in Germany and Europe: Mrs. Angela Merkel.
	The new Chancellor of Germany has made some recent speeches that indicate how far centre-right thinking is moving in answer to the familiar and tedious sclerosis of the EU. She understands the need to ask fundamental questions—something we would do. I am slightly surprised that some of her remarks have not been referred to earlier. In the Bundestag on 11 May this year, in a debate on the European Union, she said:
	"The truth must be looked in the eye, for it is in part sobering indeed. Many citizens criticize Europe for its tendency to overregulate and doubt that Europe can tackle the problems of the future—unemployment and low economic growth. In brief, it must be said that Europe is not valued as highly by the Europeans as its history would perhaps give reason to believe."
	She continued:
	"We must, and I am deeply convinced of this, critically review the state of the European project. We must put the people at the centre and answer their questions. What does Europe mean for my job, for my prosperity, for my social security when I fall ill or grow old? Does Europe make things easier, better or does it put a brake on them, put obstacles in their way? I believe that we should not avoid these questions. We should answer them directly, giving specific, concrete replies.
	In my opinion, our task now is no more and no less than to add a new rationale to the historical reasons for the foundation of the European Union."

Alistair Burt: There are, of course, blind spots. The hon. Gentleman raised the EPP. I have not come here to discuss the Conservative party's domestic arrangements and disagreement among friends, but given that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone rose to similar bait, I do not think that it will cause any harm if I say a little about the matter, and I do not think that I will be letting any secrets out of the bag.
	It is no secret that I voted in the final ballotfor my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney(Mr. Cameron) as leader of the Conservative party. I voted for him knowing of his commitment towithdraw from the European People's party-European Democrats group. I also voted for him although we had had a conservation in which I told him that I would not have made such a commitment and that I was not a fan of it. I am not so much of a hypocrite as to say something in the Chamber about the EPP-ED that would be patently ridiculous and contrary to everything that hon. Members know about me. However, the matter is of no consequence because the decision is not mine, but that of the leader of the party and the leader of our group in Europe.
	I am passionate about Europe, and my friendships and relationships with people in the Christian Democratic Union go back some 20 years. However, those relationships and friendships will be maintained, irrespective of the relationships of groups in the European Parliament. Important though the matter is, it is not nearly as important as doing my job in opposition of removing an arrogant, deceitful, ineffective, time-expired and useless Government. Nothing that Conservative Members do in relation to Europe will get in the way of that, so Labour Members can take no comfort from any discussions that we might have about whom we sit with in the European Parliament.
	Let me return to the blind spots. I was not referring to Mrs. Merkel's membership of the EPP as a blind spot because, of course, I do not think that it is a blind spot. However, we do not think identically to Mrs. Merkel and the CDU. For example, the constitution as it is drawn will not be an answer. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone is right, as are many hon. Members, that the constitution will not work. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) has done superb work on the constitution and her comments about it are elucidating, honest and refreshing. She knows, as the rest of us do, not only that the constitution is not an answer, but that Europe will continue to blunder on until we find an answer to the fundamental fudge. What must we do and support collectively, and what must we do on our own as nation states to draw distinctions and identify differences? Whatever it may be called, that issue has still not been sorted out, and until it is, the arrangements will not work. Whether there are six, 12, 25, 27 or 32 members, the issue must be sorted out, and we must all find a mechanism for that to be done.
	Let me identify another blind spot on which I should like to hear from the Minister in due course. I should like the German presidency of the EU to take development and aid issues more seriously than appears likely at present. Those issues were rightly moved up the agenda under the UK presidency, and an ever-shrinking world continues to demand that we recognise the need to attack world poverty and injustice through a judicious balance of aid, trade and capacity-building.
	It is rumoured that the forthcoming summit of the G8 and the German presidency of the EU may not maintain interest in international development issues. It is most likely that Germany will concentrate on economic and intellectual property, but that may provide openings. Perhaps the Minister will let me know what the Government are doing to ensure that development issues are a specific focus for Germany in 2007, so that the Gleneagles commitments can be built on. That may mean holding Government to account for promises that they have made, or pressing them on new promises.
	If development is not to be a focus in itself, how will we seek to use any agenda that Chancellor Merkel sets out to press for progress on commitments to developing countries? It would be a shame if we went back on everything that has been achieved, and I hope that we shall be able to make progress. Given the effectiveness of the Department for International Development, I, along with a number of my colleagues, still feel that the EU may not always be the best vehicle for dealing with the amount of aid that is involved. I should welcome any comfort that the Minister can offer.
	As others have said today, the main thing is to recognise that, as the European Union stands at a crossroads once again—it seems to do that during most weeks—there are real causes for optimism, provided that the EU continues to listen to the moderate centre-right voices of reform that have been so consistently championed by Conservative Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks——I am delighted to see that he has returned to the Chamber—said in his speech on Europe the other week:
	"I am a firm believer that Britain's place is in the European Union, a strong player in Europe, not at the margins. But that does not mean that we should abandon our critical faculties in examining the EU's predicament."
	I entirely agree. I am sure that when my right hon. Friend comes to exercise his critical faculties in examining the EU's predicament, he will see the force of what Angela Merkel is achieving in Germany. I am sure that he will urge the Government to recognise that there are valuable opportunities for reform and progress, and that in driving forward reform and progress in Germany, Angela Merkel is giving a lesson that the Government, in their indolence, would do well to follow.

Ian Davidson: I know that others want to speak before the winding-up speeches, so I shall be briefer than I should have wished to be otherwise.
	The debate has been very good-natured, as such debates usually are. I had expected a degree of consensus on the idea that the constitution was dead, just as joining the euro was dead, until my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) let the cat out of the bag by acting as an outrider for the European Union—as he often does—and suggesting that the whole point of a pause for reflection in this country was that it was a pause to persuade.
	It was good that we received some copies of the text of the Minister's speech earlier. Particularly valuable was this quotation:
	"The issue is how we take forward the proposals that were agreed in the constitution".
	I think that the idea that the pause is all about working out how we proceed with the constitution is fundamentally inappropriate, but it is shared by many of our European partners. The outgoing Austrian President, Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel, has said
	"I can well imagine a referendum that takes place simultaneously in all EU states. The constitution would be accepted if the majority of the European population and the majority of states approves it."
	That is an interesting constitutional concept, and it would be helpful if the British Government made it absolutely clear that we are not prepared to be bounced into a European constitution by a vote taken elsewhere. Mr. Schüssel added that he was convinced that something new had to be added to the document and that this could be a new name or method for adoption of the document. The idea that renaming the constitution makes it more acceptable fundamentally misses the point, as does the suggestion that, because we are having difficulties with the present procedure for ratification, we need to find a new way of adopting the document. That does not recognise that perhaps the document itself is part of the problem.
	There is a similar proposal from the Belgium Liberal Premier, Mr. Verhofstadt, who said:
	"If four fifths of the Member States have ratified it and one or more Member States have encountered difficulty in proceeding with ratification, the matter will be referred to the European Council."
	Basically, he was saying that that was a good idea and the way in which the matter should be progressed. That also indicates that ratification of the constitution is still sought by much of Europe and that the difficulty is seen to be with those peoples who have not yet chosen to ratify the constitution. There is a wonderful comment from Giscard d'Estaing, who said:
	"What is this joke? We have to vote again until the French see what the stakes are".
	There is no limit there or the suggestion that there should only be a single vote. They should keep on voting, presumably on the basis of re-sits that they continue to take, until they come up with the right answer.
	The constitution is dead, but many people will not admit it. I remember the enthusiasm in this Chamber shown by the Liberal party when the Luxemburgers voted in a referendum to support the constitution. I was reminded of the way in which the Albanians used to say, "We and the Chinese are 7 billion strong." The Liberals were able to say that, with the Luxemburgers, they could fill a reasonably large charabanc with supporters of the European constitution.
	The drive, however, to a united European and ever-closer union has not gone away. Those who focus on the constitution as the main issue and who see its stalling as a great success and as some sort of political victory misunderstand what is happening elsewhere. The drive to a superstate continues and the flow continues towards ever-closer union. I had wanted to say something about the drive to a European defence agency, about ever-closer union on asylum issues, justice and home affairs and about the power being taken by the Commission under the guidance of the European Court of Justice to establish lists of crimes for which punishments have to be established by Europe. I also wanted to refer to the space agency and the work that has been done to establish a diplomatic service even though its establishment was clearly in the constitution and should not have proceeded. However, a consular service is being set up with embassies abroad, which is a clear example of a proposal in the constitution being proceeded with anyway. The work of the European Court of Justice is also greatly increasing the drive towards centralisation.
	I had also hoped to touch on issues relating to health and tax in which the ECJ continues to take powers from the United Kingdom. The Commission intends to publish a communication on alcohol and health in September despite having no competency for health matters. Again, that is a completely new area of work that the EU hopes to expand. The ECJ has recently taken the decision that it, rather than an outside body, should preside over disputes between member states. Again, that is the expansion of power into new areas in which the EU did not previously see itself as having a role, but which it now explicitly states that it wishes to take on. The question is what we do about all that.
	I have come to the conclusion that reform of the budget is impossible without some sort of car crash. I believe that we should vote to reject the European budget when we have the opportunity to do so in order to concentrate minds. It seems clear that even the voice of the people in France and Holland is being ignored. Unless the situation is brought to a crisis, the elites of Europe will pay no attention. I regret the fact that we are in that position, but if those in power above us have no intention of listening to the will of the people on these issues, we have little choice.
	Finally, I would like to offer the Minister a suggestion about how he could make himself even more popular —[Interruption.]—if that were possible. My suggestion would also give the European Union a good name. EU beef has in the past been distributed to pensioners in my constituency from the enormous surplus stocks, as has EU butter and cheese. I am aware that there are enormous stocks of surplus EU wine, so I propose that the Minister takes the initiative and seeks agreement with his colleagues to give some wine from the EU wine lake to pensioners in my constituency— [Interruption.] Yes, to others, too, but pensioners first. I suggest that this is called the Hoon allocation, which would ensure that his name was remembered throughout the country for a long time to come.

Chris Bryant: I hate to remind you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but Britain is in Europe and the competition took place in London.
	To move on to more serious matters, I have taken to heart the injunction of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) earlier this afternoon when he said that 95 per cent. of our debates on these issues repeat points that have already been made before. I hope not to say anything that I have said here before, but it means that my speech is split into three rather odd parts. The first is about the television without frontiers directive, an important measure being considered at the moment. The second is about mobile telephony charges and the third is about the EU and its relations with Iran.
	On the first, many Members will not think of the television without frontiers directive as the single most important issue on the stocks at the moment. In 1989, it allowed originally for the system of listed events, which means that we are able to watch the World cup on free-to-air television as well as the Olympics and other events. The Commission is proposing some changes, some of which are to be welcomed and some are sincerely not to be welcomed.
	The first that should not be welcomed is the proposal to extend the directive to all audio-visual media services because that creates the danger of the European Commission bringing forward policy that should properly be the regard of individual member states. The Commission is also in danger of doing that in suggesting that there should be a specific rule governing all audio-visual services in Europe with regard to incitement of hatred on various levels. That commitment would go considerably further than UK law. Freedom of speech, as it plays out in each member state, should be for that member state to determine and not for the EU to determine.
	The television without frontiers directive also suggests that there should be changes to the protection of minors. For the most part, articles 3d and 3g(f) are sensible measures. All of us would like audio-visual services across Europe to protect minors, and I would argue that more stringent controls on the broadcasting of advertisements to children that promote eating and drinking wholly inappropriate food and drink, which in turn does not lead to a healthy lifestyle, would be only right and proper.
	Ofcom has suggested rather tentative measures that fail to address the fact that the vast majority of children watch not children's programmes but adult programmes. For instance, the most watched television programme among nine to 14-year-olds is "Coronation Street", which is sponsored by and advertises Cadbury. We need to address a real problem: our youngsters face a crisis of obesity and if we do not tackle that robustly, we will make a big mistake.
	The directive also moves forward on the issue of product placement. Members who have watched a Bond movie will have noticed that product placement is an important part of the way in which most American-funded films are made. It is not that I want to interfere with that, but there should be honesty about the way that products are placed in television programmes, particularly those paid for by the licence fee. I note that the BBC no longer insists on people saying sticky-backed plastic instead of Sellotape, and I do not have a problem with that, but I would not want to go down the US route, where programmes are sponsored by Coca-Cola and there are large Coca-Cola cups in front of jurors for "The X Factor" or "Pop Idol" and so on. Audiences want to know when they are being sold something and we should support that important part of the directive.
	One issue that, as far as I know, has never been mentioned in this House but has been debated at some length in Europe is the cost of mobile telephony when roaming around other countries in Europe. I thought that we were meant to have a single market, yet the difference in cost between a Latvian phoning home when in Malta and a British person phoning from Germany is dramatic. Mobile telephone companies have been grossly overcharging around Europe for many years. It is only because of the Commission's intervention in the past few months that, at the very last minute, some mobile phone companies have decided to cut their fees for roaming calls. I am glad that they are doing so, but it is only sometimes thanks to the international efforts of the European Commission—for which it rarely gets any praise, although I note that it managed to get a whole laudatory front page out of the  Daily Mail on one occasion—that some businesses are prepared to take action.
	I end by talking about an area to which the Foreign Secretary referred: EU-Iran relations. I know that many hon. Members and many members of the public feel that the most important issue to be addressed at the moment is that of Iran's intentions when it comes to enrichment of plutonium. I share that concern and I believe that Britain has played an important role, working with our French and German colleagues, to make sure that we have a robust policy. That has paid dividends by bringing not only the Russians and Chinese, but the Americans to a sane and sensible position. I hope that the Iranians will, in the very near future, respond positively to the proposal for talks. The EU representative, Javier Solana, has also played an important role in ensuring that the negotiations between the EU3 have been successful and that the Iranian Government fully understand the EU position.
	Equally important, however, is the issue of human rights in Iran. Iran's human rights record is grisly. It has been so for many years, but in many ways it has become worse in the past 18 months. Last week in the other place, Lord Triesman reported that the number of executions in Iran had increased dramatically compared to this time last year. We know that the use of the death penalty in Iran is on the increase: Amnesty International reckons that there were at least 94 instances of its use last year in Iran, and the International Federation of Human Rights estimates a much higher number of cases—between 300 and 400.
	I know that not all hon. Members believe that the death penalty is wrong. I believe that it is wrong in all instances, just as torture is wrong, but it is particularly wrong when it is imposed on minors—those aged under 18. Last year, at least nine people aged under 18 were executed in Iran. In 2004, a 16-year-old girl was hanged for fornication and a 14-year-old boy was whipped to death for eating during Ramadan. That is not a situation that people either in this country or across the European Union can countenance any longer.
	Furthermore, the death penalty is regularly used in Iran for lavaat, or homosexuality. On 19 July 2005, Ayaz Marhuuni and Mahmoud Askari were executed in Mashhad. They were both 17, although the authorities tried to say that they were 19, and at the time of the alleged crimes, they were probably 15 or 16. Almost certainly, the charges presented against them, which changed from day to day, were trumped up. Not only were they hanged, but it was not a British-style hanging; instead, as is often the case when the death penalty is used for lavaat, they were executed by a slow hanging method whereby a thin cord is placed to the side of the neck so that the neck does not break and the person struggles on the cord, often for several minutes, before being asphyxiated. It is a deliberately brutal and cruel death, which we should not countenance.
	At least 11 people were executed for lavaat between December 2004 and November 2005. Many more have been sentenced and no more has been heard of them, but we can be fairly certain that in many cases the execution has happened, not in public as used to happen, but in private. In addition to that, there are many honour killings in parts of Iran. One expert on the Ahwaz region said that homosexuals
	"are generally killed in Ahwaz, by the security forces or by their male kin, in one of three ways: strangulation, throat-slitting or decapitation. If the homosexual youths are killed by the security forces, their corpses—frequently decapitated but accompanied by their heads—are left in the street. Their families therefore have a certain tragic incentive to kill them more humanely"—

Graham Brady: As always, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), and to conclude our debate, to which stimulating contributions were made by Members on both sides of the House. Our debates have become more interesting as the need to find a new approach to EU policy becomes more pressing. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) made a characteristically good speech, and I can assure him that we will not persecute him. Indeed, I hope that he will participate in our debates more often in future. He rightly pointed to the growing consensus on deregulation and on economic reform in the EU, but a corresponding movement towards flexible structures and away from the burdens imposed by the constitution is sadly lacking.
	My hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset(Mr. Walter) made an important speech about transparency and scrutiny, and reminded the House of the role of interparliamentary bodies such as the parliamentary delegation of the Western European Union. My hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) spoke about the extraordinary arrogance of European politicians, who are determined to ignore the will of the people, and he reminded the House of the pressing economic challenge faced by the EU.
	The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chairman of the Select Committee, warned that the constitution might rise from the dead at precisely the time of the next general election—surely an excellent reason why the Government might want to declare emphatically now that they would veto it, and that there is no point in bringing the constitution back at any time in the future. That view was shared, I think, by the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley).
	My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) revealed that he has become addicted to European debates. It is a pleasure to see him back and contributing to them. He went on to highlight the folly of assuming that the constitution is dead, and warned that the Government are missing a golden opportunity to change the direction of the European Union—a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash).
	The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston(Ms Stuart) made a thoughtful speech, which bodes well for the speech that she will make tomorrow at Open Europe, to which I look forward to listening. She spoke about buns and babies, big ones and small ones, ins and outs, but most crucially, she acknowledged the importance of making it possible to return powers to the member states, ending the process whereby the acquis communautaire is a one-way street. We would welcome such flexibility in the structure of the European Union.

Joan Ryan: I begin by assuringmy hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby(Mr. Mitchell) that I am pleased to be here to answer this debate, and that I do not believe that I drew the short straw this evening. I welcome the opportunity to talk to the House about the recent change to the immigration rules for postgraduate doctors and dentists. However, before I get into the detail of the change and address the points that have been raised, I want to take this opportunity to set out the Government's position on migration, and to set the change in context.
	The five-year strategy on asylum and immigration was published over a year ago, in February 2005. It sets out the premise that we need to be clearer about which migrants we need in the UK, and why. That is the basis of our immigration system, and of our manifesto commitment to introduce a points-based system for managed migration.
	It is the job of the Government to manage migration into the UK so that the needs and rights of UK citizens are maintained. That is why the points-based system for managed migration, on which we consulted widely between July and November last year, went back to first principles to identify and select the migrants whom the UK really needs, and who benefit the UK by being here.
	The Government are, and have always been, very clear that migration makes a substantial contribution to economic growth because it helps to fill gaps in the labour market, including key public services, such as health and education. Migration also increases investment, innovation and entrepreneurship in the UK. Culturally, we are enriched by people with diverse backgrounds from other countries.
	With an expanded EU, there is an accessible and mobile work force already contributing to our growing economy, closing many gaps experienced by employers. Our starting point is that employers should look first to recruit from the UK and the expanded EU before recruiting migrants from outside the EU. Migration needs to be properly managed. It also needs to be robust against abuse. Only those of benefit to the UK should be admitted and, once here, they must comply with the conditions of their leave.
	That, then, is the underlying strategy. On that basis, we outlined our proposals for a five-tier managed migration system in the Command Paper, "A Points-Based System: Making Migration Work for Britain", which was presented to the House on 7 March. The aim of the new system is to develop a more efficient and transparent migration system that sets out clearly who is permitted to come to the UK and why. We want to design a system that is better able to identify and attract those migrants who have the most to contribute to the UK—one that offers a more efficient, transparent and objective process and that improves compliance while reducing scope for abuse. As part of that work, we have reviewed existing routes for employment, training and study with a view to identifying which are of most benefit to the UK.
	Underpinning the new migration system will be a five-tier framework, which will replace more than 80 work and study routes. That will help people to understand how the system works and will direct applicants to the category that is most appropriate for them. Tier 1 will cover those highly skilled individuals who can contribute to growth and productivity. Tier 2 will be for skilled workers with a job offer, who can fill gaps in the UK labour force. Tier 3 will provide for limited numbers of low skilled workers, needed to fill temporary labour shortages. Tier 4 will accommodate overseas students. Tier 5 will cover what we describe as youth mobility and temporary workers: people who are allowed to work in the UK for a limited period of time, primarily to satisfy non-economic objectives.
	We also intend to set up an independent body to identify employment shortages across all sectors of the economy. It will be known as the skills advisory body and will build on existing structures and expertise—in particular the skills for business network, which is funded in part by the Department for Education and Skills. Shortages identified by the skills advisory body will inform Government decisions on the use of migrant labour within tiers 2 and 3 of the points-based system.
	I want to turn to the place of doctors and dentists within the migration system. The massive investment that we have put into NHS staff and reforming medical training to build up UK NHS capacity has worked. We now have more than 117,000 doctors working in the NHS—27,400 more than in 1997—as well as record levels of doctors in training in UK medical schools and we do not need to rely on overseas doctors as much as we did in the past. That investment and expansion, coupled with the reform of medical education, is leading to increased competition for medical posts. It has become clear that, due to the changing labour market, the specific category within the immigration rules for doctors and dentists that allowed permit-free training could lead to the displacement of UK graduates. There has been a growing consensus that changing the rules is the right thing to do.